


Crime, Please!

by BeTheMarimo, mirkandmidnight



Series: author's favorites [8]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Leverage Fusion, Alternate Universe - Thieves, Anxiety Attacks, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Military Backstory, Multi, Organized Crime, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-26 12:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12557392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeTheMarimo/pseuds/BeTheMarimo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirkandmidnight/pseuds/mirkandmidnight
Summary: Lardo won't stop trying to stab people, Kent Parson has a thing about Mark Rothko, and Bitty's pretty sure Jack Zimmermann hates his guts.When Bitty agreed to join a Robin Hood-esque gang of thieves, he's almost certain this isn't what he signed up for.





	Crime, Please!

**Author's Note:**

> I take no responsibility for the accuracy of descriptions of military/FBI/gun violence/hand-to-hand combat. I did my best, and you can all just deal. Thanks to [Sami](https://samisnotbritish.tumblr.com/) for the French translations. If they're bad, it's her fault. (She says that she also did her best.)

****Part One: The Tagno Incident** **

Bitty, squeezed into a ventilation shaft inside the house of one of the most filthy-rich men in the country, has a feeling that if his Moomaw knew what he was doing this very second, she wouldn't be too pleased with him. He makes his way through the shaft inch by agonizing inch, hearing the string quartet from the gala echoing around him.

“How're you doing, Bitty?” asks Nursey’s voice in his ear.

Bitty adjusts the earpiece with his free hand. “Fine. How's it going upstairs?”

There's the sound of a keyboard clicking, then Nursey's voice returns. “Looking good up there. Holster and Ransom are keeping things running smoothly. Lardo says good luck, and sorry she couldn't be here. Stomach flu's a killer, man.”

Bitty reaches an intersection and pauses. “Left or right?”

Nursey hums. “Right, and then the first grate you come to should be the one.”

“Mmhm.” Bitty turns the corner and continues crawling. “My poor knees,” he mutters to himself, but keeps going until he gets to the first grate. Digging into his pockets for his screwdriver, he sets to work prying up the grating. It'll be a tight fit, but he should be able to make it through. Getting the painting out might be a bit of a jam, but Dex promised that it would fit, and Bitty trusts his team with his life – has trusted his team with his life, on more than one occasion.

Finally, the grating pops up, and he sets it to one side. In the room below, he hears the low rumble of voices. Which isn't good. He isn't just going to waltz through the gallery while there are other people there and steal a priceless painting.

“Uh, Nursey? I think there's someone down there.” 

There's a crackle of static as Nursey sighs. “Let's take a look. Look down there and tell me what's going on.”

Bitty leans over and pokes his head through the hole where the grate used to be and scans the room. Down below is a giant of a man with the doggone painting tucked under one arm and a pistol in the other hand, currently aimed at a kid in a security officer's clothes.

“Sorry, friend,” the other thief says, a thick accent coloring his words. “It is not personal.”

And at that moment, Bitty does the most unfortunate thing he could have possibly done. Hanging upside down, halfway out of the grate, he sneezes. The silence that follows is deafening. They both turn to look up at him, shocked.

“Oh, sugar,” Bitty sighs.

“Who the hell are you?” the man with the pistol says. He raises the pistol from the center of the kid's chest to the space between Bitty's eyes. His other hand goes to his earpiece and he pauses for a second, clearly listening to whoever's talking on the other end. The kid takes advantage of his moment of distraction and kicks him in the shin, and while the Russian curses and clutches his leg, Bitty leans out of the vent and hauls the kid up after him.

“Time to go,” Bitty says, and retreats down the ventilation shaft as fast as he can, barely checking to see if the kid is following him. A moment later, he hears muffled gunshots, one of which pierces the shaft just behind him. 

“What was that?” Nursey's voice in his ear is panicked. “Bitty, is someone shooting at you?”

“Can't talk, busy now!” Bitty shouts. “How do I get out of here?” Nursey, bless his heart, manages to direct him back to the exit, where he makes a break for it out the employee entrance. There's no one around, thank the Lord, or he'd really have some explaining to do.

The van is idling across the street, and Chowder opens the door for him. He looks over Bitty's shoulder and his eyebrows draw together. “Did you get the, you know, the thing?”

“Oh, fudge, the painting’s still in there,” Bitty realizes. “Doggone it.”

Chowder sighs. “Did you really want to say that in front of some guy?” He points behind Bitty.

Bitty turns around, and dagnabit, the kid from the house has actually followed him back to the getaway van. “Well, you see, there was this Russian, and he was going to shoot this kid, and so I just grabbed the kid and made a break for it, and well, here we are.” He shrugs. “I didn't think he was going to follow me.”

“Uh huh,” Chowder says. “And I'm guessing you also didn't think it was a bad idea to tell this kid that we were planning on stealing a painting from the owner of the house he works at?”

Oh, lordy.

“Well, we're going to have to bring him with now,” Chowder sighs. Bitty turns to the kid, who doesn't look nearly as terrified as he would have expected. Which is a start, he's not going to lie. “What's your name, kid?”

“Tony Tangredi,” the kid says, then winces. “But please don’t call me that.”

“Well,” Chowder says, then pauses to think. “Tango, congratulations. You've just earned yourself a ride with this coast's most notorious band of criminals. Get in.”

***

Jack's expression is nothing short of thunderous. His eyebrows draw together, he takes a deep breath, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Bittle. When I sent you on this job, I asked you to bring me a painting. Not a human being.”

Bitty winces.

“What happened?” He drums his fingers on the wooden tabletop. They're in Jack’s office, a room dominated by a massive table. Jack is seated at the head, with a file folder open in front of him and a mug of coffee off to one side.

Bitty looks down at his hands. “Well, I got to the room and there was this Russian there with a gun, and he was going to shoot this kid, and he already had the painting, and I panicked and just grabbed the kid and got out of there.” He pauses. “I'm really sorry?”

“Sorry,” Jack repeats. His hands clench into fists. “You can tell the clients that when you're telling them that their long-lost family heirloom has been stolen again, this time by some Russian guy.”

Bitty feels hot tears prick at his eyes, and forces himself to take a deep breath. He is not going to cry in front of Jack Zimmermann. “Oh lord, you're right, that poor family. It's all my fault, I'm usually so prepared but this guy was like a pile of bricks! He weighed twice as much as me, easy! And he had a gun, I never have to deal with guns, that's Chowder's job. It's usually so clean and simple and I sneezed, I can't believe I sneezed.” The words run together into an incoherent jumble, and halfway through, big fat tears start rolling down his face. “Doggone it, this is all my fault,” he says, voice cracking.

When he looks back up, Jack's eyes have gone wide and he's frozen on the spot. “That's not–” he pauses and takes a deep breath. “Look, I don't want you to beat yourself up over it. You don't know how to fight, and I should have taken care of that earlier. It’s lucky we caught this before anyone got hurt, eh?” He reaches over the desk and pats Bitty’s shoulder awkwardly. “Don't worry about it.”

Bitty sniffs. “Sorry.”

Jack waves a hand. “Go on, get some sleep.”

Bitty stands up and walks as fast as he thinks is respectable toward the door. Just as his hand hits the doorknob, Jack's voice stops him.

“And Bittle?” Bitty pauses, but doesn't turn back to look at Jack. He's not sure he can take the disappointment that's sure to be in Jack’s eyes.

“Yes?” Thank the Lord, his voice doesn't quaver. 

“Send that kid home, will you? I don't want to see him around here tomorrow morning.”

Bitty shuts the door behind him on the way out. Once in the hallway, he groans, turns around, and lets his forehead thunk against the door.

“Are you in trouble?” Chowder asks. Bitty doesn't want to know how long he's been standing there. He turns around again, and Chowder's leaning against the wall right next to Tango.

“So much trouble,” he says, and groans again. “This could not have gone any worse.”

Chowder shrugs. “I mean, you saved this yo-yo’s life.”

“And that's another thing,” Bitty says. “He wants Tango out of here by morning. Where in God's green earth am I going to send him?”

“You could just swear him to secrecy and send him home.” Bitty glares, and Chowder raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. “What? It's an idea.”

Tango raises a hand. “Um, I don't actually want to leave.”

Bitty and Chowder turn to stare at him in unison, contrasting looks of horror and consideration on their faces. Chowder takes a step closer, sizing him up.

It's around this time that Bitty finds his voice again. “What? No. That's a terrible idea. We can't just keep him, can we? He has to have people somewhere who'll be looking for him.”

Tango shrugs. “My parents have been trying to get me to move out for weeks, and this way I can have a job that doesn't make me want to claw out my own eyes. I'll just tell them I have a job in–” He pauses. “Where am I?”

“Boston,” Chowder supplies, and Tango makes finger guns.

“Great. I'll tell them I have a job in Boston, and they'll be off my back about that.”

Bitty's mouth opens and closes a few times before he manages to get any more words out. 

“Sugar, even if that's true, you'll never get Jack to agree. He already told me to–”

“What did I tell you to do?” Jack asks, shutting the door to his office behind him. Bitty jumps.

“Send you home,” he finishes weakly.

Chowder turns to face him. “So, our guy Tango here doesn't want to go back to his job. Actually, he wants to stay here and work with us. Right, kid?” Tango nods, and Bitty winces at the look of exasperation on Jack's face.

“You want to stay here?” he asks. “You know we're criminals, right? We're not nice people. We steal things and kill people.”

“Hold up, we haven't killed anyone since the Johnson job, and that was like, three months ago, and anyway, the guy was trying to stab Ransom,” Chowder says. Jack shoots him a look, and he holds his hands up in surrender. “Just thought it should be noted.” He turns to Tango and adds, “Also, it's generally people who deserve it. We steal things to give them back to their rightful owners.”

“That's not the point.” Jack stands up straight and looks Tango in the eyes. At over six feet tall, he cuts an imposing figure. “Tagno–”

“Tango,” says Tango. 

Jack sighs. It’s deep. Tragic. “Tango. Are you sure you want to join us?”

Tango matches his posture and nods. “Anything has to be better than doing security for a guy who pays his kitchen staff less than half minimum wage.”

Jack pauses for a long moment and glances at Bitty, who does his best to look innocent. “Yeah, okay, fine,” Jack says. “But you're not going out on jobs for at least a month. Bittle and Chowder will take you around and introduce you to everyone. And if you're a problem, so help me God, I'll let Ransom and Holster start using you as bait.” With that, he strides off down the hall, shaking his head as he goes.

Bitty lets out a sigh of relief. “Well, that could have gone a lot worse.” He looks over at Tango. “I guess you're sticking around, little tadpole. Let's get you the tour.”

***

Here are a couple of things that Bitty learns about Tango while he and Chowder are giving him the tour: 

1\. This kid asks a lot of questions. As in, so many questions even a toddler would be annoyed. And he asks about things that should be obvious to any toddler. Or anyone with a pair of eyes.

2\. He has zero skills. He actually cannot do anything. He’s a total klutz, and the second he steps into the living room he manages to break a clock and the DVD player. It’s weird. It’s like some mutant ability that activates the second he’s within ten feet of Lardo. He starts to get twitchy and appliances just break. Chowder's trying to figure out the best place to put Tango as far as skill set goes, which is why they also notice that–

3\. Tango has no tact. They introduce him to Dex and Nursey, who are in the middle of yet another conversation-that-isn't-an-argument-we-fucking-swear and Tango's face does this thing where his eyebrows raise and his mouth gets very small. Chowder asks if he's okay, and he nods unconvincingly. So they won't be putting him with Ransom and Holster, their grifters, that's for sure.

In fact, by the end of the night, they've introduced Tango to everyone on the team and they still have no idea where to put him.

“I don't know, dude,” Ransom says, glancing into the kitchen where Tango's lurking and asking Jack questions. Jack answers them all, looking increasingly irritated. “What do we even do with him? Dude's got no like, concrete stuff he can do.”

Bitty sighs. He’s beginning to wonder what exactly constitutes Jack’s definition of “being a problem”.

Lardo sprawls on the couch, her phone held over her face. “Dunno. Maybe we have to send him home, but I don't think that's a good idea.” She sits up straight, nearly dropping her phone on her face. “Nah, man, I know what we do. We take turns with him until we figure out what he's good at.”

Chowder pulls a face. “I dunno. Explain?”

She waves her hands. “No, no, no, I got this. So like, tomorrow he hangs out with Nursey and Dex learning about whatever the fuck it is they do, then the next day he goes with me and Bitty, then Rans and Holster, then you. And we just cycle through until he starts getting good at something in particular.” Lardo snaps her fingers and grins, looking altogether too pleased with herself. “It's smart, right?”

Ransom glances at Holster, then shrugs. “Yeah, sounds good. You get to tell Nursey and Dex, though.”

“Ah, they'll be fine. Nursey'll keep Dex under control, and if the kid can't handle those two, he's got no business being here.” Lardo flops back down on the couch and stretches her arms out as far as she can over her head. “It'll be good to have some new blood.”

“I’m going now,” Jack announces, shutting the door to the hallway behind him.

Tango walks up behind them and stares at the closed door. “Man, that guy is tense.”

**Part Two: Fistfights and Feelings**

It's five o'clock the following morning when Bitty's awoken by someone pounding on his bedroom door. He rolls out of bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Somebody had better be dying. But when he flings open the door, Jack is standing on the other side in athletic clothes, a determined look on his face.

“Put some clothes on,” he says, “we're going to the gym.”

“What's going on?”

“You're going to learn hand to hand combat if it kills me. Can't have you running around on jobs completely helpless, eh?”

Bitty just looks at him for a second, then deadpans, “It’s five in the morning. No human being should be awake this early. I haven’t even eaten a filling breakfast.”

Jack tosses something at him, which Bitty just manages to catch. Because apparently his body is more awake at this ridiculous hour than his brain. Huh. He turns the rectangle over in his hands. “This is a protein bar.”

“Yeah.”

“Is this what you eat every morning?” Bitty holds up a hand. “Hang on, do you get up this early all the time?”

He looks at Bitty, then his gaze slides away. “Yes.”

If Bitty were more awake, he would have so many things to say about this, the first being, son of a biscuit, who willingly wakes up this early when they could be sleeping like people who don’t actually despise themselves? And who eats protein bars to replace an actual meal?

Of course, he can’t actually say any of this, because Jack already doesn’t like him, and who knows how he’ll take to the kind of chirping the team’s so fond of? Bitty sighs. Jack doesn't look as if he's about to take no for an answer, so Bitty shuts the door and puts on his workout gear.

***

After their disastrous first session (Bitty falls on his backside three times and has more bruises than he ever thought possible) Bitty pretty much figures that they’re done with this. His mornings will be his own again, and he’ll be able to sleep to his heart’s content. So that night, he watches about six episodes of Kitchen Nightmares and doesn’t get to sleep before midnight.

Which is why, when the pounding on his door starts at five on the nose, he allows himself to let loose with a muttered string of curses. He stumbles to the door and flings it open. 

“Lord, somebody had better be dying,” he snaps.

Jack blinks at him. “No, sorry.”

Bitty just gapes at him. Again? Seriously? “Look, Jack,” he starts, “I get that you’re, like, indestructible and all, but some of us actually have to sleep.”

“You know,” Jack says, “if you went to sleep at a reasonable hour instead of staying up all night watching Guy Fieri, maybe you wouldn’t have so much of a problem with getting up early.”

 _Okay._ He cracks his neck and glowers, then shuts the door to change into his gym clothes. No one insults his honor and gets away with it. No one. So, now Bitty’s just going to have to deck Jack. 

That… does not go so well. Bitty goes to bed that night with bruises all over his ribs from the many times he falls down. There are a couple more on his face where Jack got in a few lucky hits. Bitty’s not too bad at dodging; it’s trying to fight back where he tends to get his behind handed to him on his Moomaw’s good crockery.

By the fourth day, Bitty’s about as close to accepting this as he thinks he’s ever going to get. He can’t exactly stop Jack from banging on his door every morning, and he doesn’t think Jack would stop even if he asked. He’s kind of persistent that way.

So that morning, Bity opens the door already dressed and relishes the flicker of surprise on Jack’s face. Then it settles into the same old determined expression. 

Bitty might not be getting any better at this, but he’s still got a little pride.

He still gets the snot kicked out of him, but to a lesser extent. The only thing he’s getting better at is finding Jack’s tells, the little twitches that telegraph exactly where he’s going to aim. Bitty gets it wrong more often than not, but he gets it right often enough to keep from getting himself concussed.

After practice that day, Bitty grabs his water bottle from the corner of the gym and takes a long drink. Then something hits him in the head and falls to the floor. “Ow!” Bitty rubs at his head and picks up the protein bar. He holds it up and looks at Jack. “Seriously?”

Jack shrugs, but there’s something close to amusement in the quirk of his mouth. “Eat more protein.”

“You didn’t have to throw it at my head!” he protests, and Jack actually laughs.

“I’m sorry, but how are you gonna dodge a punch if you can’t dodge a PowerBar?”

Bitty puts his hands on his hips in mock-anger. “Excuse me, Mr. Zimmermann, but I have been doing a stellar job of dodging punches today.”

Jack clicks his tongue. “Still can’t throw a decent one yet.” He claps Bitty’s shoulder. “But we’ll get there.”

***

They don’t get there in the next week, or even the next two weeks, and Bitty is starting to get frustrated with this. He gets up at an ungodly hour every day and gets the snot kicked out of him, and he still isn’t that much better at not getting the snot kicked out of him than he was when this whole thing started. It’s enough to make a grown man weep.

Luckily, Bitty isn’t quite a grown man. He’s only twenty, and there’s plenty of time for him to become secure enough in his masculinity to cry over the punches he still can’t throw and the bruises up and down his sides. 

Things come to a head during practice one day, when Jack knocks him to the ground for the third time in five minutes and Bitty just snaps. 

Bitty flops from a seated position onto his back, his arms spread eagled. “I’m the worst student known to man,” he declares. “I’m about as good at fighting as a cat is at swimming.”

Jack makes an odd noise, and when Bitty looks up, he realizes it’s a choked off laugh. “Come on, you’re not _that_ bad.”

Bitty sits back up and makes a face. “Seriously, I don’t know why you haven’t given up on me yet.” 

He shrugs. “I mean, it’s as much for the team as it is for you. This isn’t, like, special treatment or anything. It’s just, you know, next time things get rough, you won’t freak out and kidnap someone.” Jack raises his eyebrows and tilts his head to one side.

Bitty’s first reaction is to be offended, because in what world is that an okay thing to say to somebody? But then the realization sets in that Jack is probably right. He’s a complete failure. He can’t even finish a job without anything and everything going wrong, from sneezing at the absolute worst time like some second-rate henchman in a Bond movie, to blowing their cover to a civilian, then _stealing that same civilian_ _and bringing him back to their secret base_. He rests his elbows on his knees and looks down.

“Yeah, maybe,” he says, voice quiet.

Jack holds up his hands, his eyes widening. “No no no, it’s fine, it’s okay, you’re doing fine. That kind of thing isn’t going to happen again, because you’re learning really fast and you’re doing great, really–”

“Jack,” Bitty interrupts. “You don’t need to blow sunshine up my butt. I suck at this.”

Jack sighs and drags a hand down the side of his face. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet and somehow more sincere than it’s ever seemed to Bitty. “Really. You’re doing great.” There’s another long pause before he extends a hand. “Come on. Let’s go again.”

***

So, maybe because of the fact that Bitty’s pretty much been devoting most of his professional life so far to 1.) Being kind of scared of Jack and 2.) Not liking Jack, it’s possible that he’s been a little, uh, biased in his opinions of him. Basically, when Bitty used to think about Jack, he would put great time and care into imagining him in a lot of different scenarios. Like being mauled by bears, for instance.

Or, you know, being a giant mutant goblin creature covered in warts and pimples, and getting defeated by an adventuring hero, usually of the small, blonde, and Southern variety.

You know, whatever. It’s not personal.

But. Now that Jack isn’t acting like a _complete and utter ass every time they speak_ (but whatever, it’s not a personal thing), Bitty can’t help noticing… things.

It starts with Shitty. Shitty has a penchant for stealing other people’s clothes, and since he and Jack are essentially roommates, more than half of the time he can be found around the Warenhaus wearing one of Jack’s stupid flannel shirts. And really, it’s incredible how many identical flannel shirts Jack Zimmermann has. Why does he need five of the same red plaid?

Anyway. Shitty steals Jack’s shirts. In retaliation, Jack starts stealing Shitty’s clothes. 

So, the next morning at five am, Bitty opens his door and Jack’s standing there in a tank top and he has _muscles_. For a second, Bitty’s brain short circuits. And you know, on a certain level, Bitty knew that Jack had to be a pretty physically fit guy. You don’t get to be a _crime lord_ without a certain level of physical intimidation factoring into the equation. He’s just never really considered that kind of physicality being directly applied to him. It’s a little daunting. 

No. This is fine. This is going to be fine.

For a moment, Jack looks at him as if he’s grown a second head. He follows Bitty’s eyes to his shirt and back up. “What?”

“What?” Bitty says, too quickly. “Nothing. It’s fine. I’m fine. Let’s go to practice, yeah?”

It’s going to be fine. They’ve been practicing for a while now, and it’s not like Bitty is some helpless, swooning maiden. He can block a punch. He can handle himself, and a revealing tank top is not going to undermine that. 

This is going to be fine.

And you know, for a while, it actually is. Bitty manages not to get decked in the first thirty seconds, which is more than he could say two weeks ago, and his blocks aren’t inspired by any stretch of the imagination, but they’re effective enough. Maybe he actually can handle this.

He manages to continue believing that, until Jack goes in for another punch and the stupid tank top shifts in just the right way and Bitty suddenly notices all the different ways that every one of Jack’s muscles tenses and becomes more defined when he’s actively trying to beat the shit out of Bitty. It’s hypnotic. Which becomes fairly problematic when Jack’s fist is flying toward his face and the only thing he can think is _Lord, how much can that boy lift?_

This is not going to be fine. 

Pain explodes behind his left eye and along his cheekbone, and Bitty goes down, banging his head on the wood floor, as if to add injury to insult. Like his pride wasn’t taking enough hits already.

“Owwwwwww...” he groans, eyes still closed. When he opens them, Jack’s face is alarmingly close to his own, and his hands are all over Bitty’s arms and chest and then on his face, grabbing his chin and turning his head to assess the damage. 

“Maudit, Crisse, oh mon Dieu, j’suis désolé. Est-ce que je t'ai blessé? Marde...” The words continue in a torrent, too fast for Bitty to understand even if they were in English.

“Um,” says Bitty.

Just as suddenly, Jack lurches backward into a crouch two feet away. “Yeah. Sorry,” he says, then clears his throat. “Why didn’t you block that? You were doing so well.”

That is a question. Bitty’s going to have to answer that question. “I didn’t see it?” he tries.

“You literally stood there and watched me punch you.” Jack’s completely straight faced.

“I, uh, got distracted.” He tries not to stare at Jack’s chest. _Tries_ being the operative word. “How long are we going to keep doing this?”

Apparently satisfied, Jack relaxes a little. “Until you stop being scared.” He pauses for a second, in which Bitty contemplates how long that could potentially be. “But actually, Ransom wants to set up an obstacle course to run Tango through, so we have to be out of here by eight.”

Taken aback, Bitty laughs. “Was that a joke I just heard, Mr. Zimmermann?”

Jack laughs too, and Bitty feels something in his chest coil a little tighter.

He can’t explain it, but after having spent so many hours trapped in a gym with him, Bitty no longer imagines Jack falling off of tall buildings, or getting shot into space without a spacesuit, or being marooned on a desert island and roasted alive by savage natives. Now, Bitty knows just how intent Jack’s gaze gets when he's demonstrating something, and how he runs his hands through his hair when he's frustrated, and how he grins when Bitty gets something right. He's not the robot they've all made him out to be. And maybe they’re being a little unfair.

Later that afternoon, after the hit has had the chance to settle into a lovely black eye, Bitty passes Lardo in the hallway. She lets out a low whistle. “Jeez. What happened to you?”

“Jack’s teaching me how to fight,” he says.

She snickers. “He’s doing a hell of a job.”

***

The next week, Bitty actually gets to go out on a job for the first time since he and Jack started sparring. It’s a pretty straightforward job. The client, a software developer from Modesto, California, recently had her work stolen by a large corporation, and she’s hiring them to retrieve it from their headquarters. Bitty will be doing most of the actual thievery, but Jack offered to come along, just in case he needs any backup.

It’s a little daunting, the thought of having to do complicated lockpicking and sneaking with Jack right there watching him the whole time, but hey, it’ll probably be fine.

He doesn’t know how Jack’s going to fit into the vents, but they’ll figure that out if it becomes a problem.

Twenty hours later, it becomes a problem. Stuck with Jack in an air vent that had looked a lot larger to him, Bitty wishes he’d spent a little more time considering that hypothetical. They have to get in and out in the next seven minutes, and that’s going to be something of a problem if Jack can’t get out of the air vent.

He sighs. “Are you sure you can’t move? It looks like you’ve got plenty of room to me.” Bitty glances down the vent, toward the grate above the safe door that he’s supposed to be breaking into right about now.

Jack grits his teeth. “That’s because you’re six inches shorter than me, Bittle.” He sighs. “Okay. New plan. You go get the program files out of the safe, and I’ll work on getting out of this vent.”

Bitty hesitates. As much as he’d like to get this job done, he doesn’t really feel good about leaving Jack on his own in an air vent. He glances back and forth a few times, then comes to a decision. Jack’s a grown man. He can take care of himself.

Probably. The fact that he somehow managed to get stuck in an air vent makes Bitty considerably less confident in his ability to keep himself out of trouble.

“You sure?” he asks.

Jack waves a hand at him. “Go.”

With a sigh, Bitty turns around and scrambles toward the grate. He peers through it, and not seeing anyone, gets out his screwdriver and starts unscrewing the grate. After a minute, he manages to pry it up and sticks his head down through the ceiling and into the room.

No one’s there, thank the Lord. At least there won’t be a repeat of the sneezing incident. Bitty retracts his head and drops down into the office below, holding the screwdriver between his teeth. It’s a classy-looking place, panelled in dark wood and with long red curtains. Bitty lands softly and puts the screwdriver back onto his tool belt, then turns in a slow circle. If he were a rich computer tycoon, where would he put all his secret things?

There’s a ridiculously gaudy painting behind the desk, all splashes of red and black. It looks like a Rothko. Bitty grins. It can’t be that easy, can it? He takes the painting off the wall and sets it on the desk, noting the inconsistencies from Rothko’s style. It’s a forgery. Not even a very good one. Well, don’t that just beat all.

Behind the painting is a metal safe. Combination lock, with a grungy-looking dial. He inspects the side of the safe, looking for any alarms that might be tripped if he tries to move it. There aren’t any he can see, but that doesn’t mean anything. He’ll need to be ready to run as soon as he gets this thing open. 

Bitty presses his ear to the metal next to the dial and turns it slowly, listening for the two clicks that mean he’s gotten the first number. 22. He parks the dial 180 degrees opposite, then turns it again. 14. Then 34, then 7. Then the lock thunks into place, and he opens the safe door just a crack, holding his breath.

An alarm begins to wail somewhere down the corridor. “Sugar honey iced tea,” Bitty mutters, and opens the safe door fully. Inside there are a few papers and a flash drive. He grabs the flash drive and climbs atop the desk, poking his head up into the vent. “Jack! Let’s go.”

Somehow Jack’s managed to get himself dislodged, which is going to be really helpful. “What’s going on?” he asks. “What’s that alarm?”

“That’s a very good question that I don’t have time to answer,” Bitty snaps. “Get out of that durned vent right now.” Jack scrambles toward him and climbs out of the vent and onto the desk, and Bitty grabs him by the arm and pulls him out of the office.

As they walk quickly down the hallway Bitty works through the possibilities in his mind. They won’t be able to blend into an office setting, not in their black clothes. They’re halfway down the hallway when a pair of security guards appears. 

A second later, Jack’s fist crashes into one of the guard’s noses, and the second guard rushes Bitty. After all those hours of practice, the movements come naturally. And anyway, these guys are no Jack Zimmermann. If Bitty can land a hit on Jack, he’s already miles better than the average security guard. Bitty blocks the first punch, ducks around the guard, and hits him in the gut. It’s like a routine. Block, dodge, hit. When both of the guards hit the floor a minute later, Bitty looks over at Jack, who shrugs. 

“Not bad,” he says. Then another alarm starts blaring.

It’s moments like these that Bitty’s really glad he’s a runner. He grabs Jack by the arm and races down the hallway. They stop at the end of the corridor, looking down the intersection. Bitty notices the tension in Jack’s face, and it hits him that this isn’t Jack’s area of expertise at all. He’s probably never actually had to make up an escape plan on the fly like this, not when most of his jobs take place a block away from the target.

The thought that Bitty is the expert in this situation is equal parts terrifying and exhilarating.

They head to the left and down a few flights of stairs, dodging a couple security guards, and ending up in the subway station on the ground floor. Bitty tugs Jack into an alcove off to one side and scans the crowd. There are six or seven police officers near the entrance, with really large guns and crackling walkie talkies. As he watches, they split up into pairs and start moving through the crowd, scrutinizing the faces of everyone they pass.

Oh, that’s not good. That’s not good at all.

There should be a train coming in two minutes that they can get on, but they’ll have to cross the station to get there, and if any of the police officers suspect something, they’re done for. Bitty takes a deep breath. He’s in control. He can handle this.

“Okay, let’s go,” he tells Jack, and starts to walk through the crowd, pushing Jack ahead of him with a hand on his back. “Act natural,” he hisses.

Jack, God love him, is about as good at acting like a normal human being as Bitty is at organized sports. He walks stiffly, and with a look on his face that’s making total strangers eye him nervously. Good Lord. Bitty glances around, and there’s a brown haired police officer ten feet away from them, talking into her walkie talkie.

“Act like you just said something really funny,” Bitty whispers, and forces a laugh. Jack chuckles nervously, and they keep walking. They’re over halfway there, and he can see a crowd of people gathering on the platform to wait for the next train. If they can make it to that crowd, they’ll be invisible.

“Are you sure about this?” Jack says through gritted teeth that might be an attempt at a smile.

“If you can manage not to look like a serial killer for twenty more feet,” Bitty mutters.

They keep walking. Ten more feet. Five. Then Bitty sees a police officer heading straight for them, and his only thought is if this guy gets a good look at Jack we’re both going to jail. It’s not that Bitty doesn’t think Jack is a professional, it’s just that he has no faith in Jack’s ability to sell a lie. So. Where does that leave him?

Bitty doesn’t think. He pulls Jack down by the strings of his hoodie and kisses him.

It’s nothing, really. Just a dry press of lips. But there’s a warm feeling spreading through his stomach and it’s like something in his brain lights up, and he thinks, _Oh._

The policeman passes them, and as soon as he’s a reasonable distance away, Bitty pulls back and speedwalks toward the crowd, cheeks burning red.

Even when they’re safely on the train, crammed together onto one of the grimy plastic benches, Bitty doesn’t look at Jack. He digs through his pockets and pulls out the flash drive, then hands it over. “Sorry about the,” Bitty gestures vaguely. “You know.”

Jack tosses the flash drive and catches it. “It’s fine, Bittle. It was a good idea.”

Bitty looks up for a second. “Really?” Maybe–

“Yeah, you know, it was a good distraction,” Jack says, and reaches out as if he’s going to pat Bitty’s shoulder. But at the last second, he withdraws his hand. “Good work today.”

Oh. 

And it’s fine. He’s fine. It’s just–

He should know better by now.

He’s always fallen hardest for the people he knows he can’t have. Why would someone like Jack want someone like him?

**Part Three: In Which Everyone Fucking Hates Reno**

Bitty looks doubtfully at the gun in his hand and points it at Jack. “I don’t know about this.”

Jack folds his arms over his chest and shifts his weight. “It’s not even loaded.” 

“I mean, still–”

“You’re not going to have it in a moment.”

“That’s not comforting,” Bitty says. “I don’t want to be on the other end of it, either.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here, right? Now, first step when handling an armed opponent is to find a way to control the weapon. Got that?”

“Control the weapon,” Bitty parrots, not entirely following.

“Okay. Prepare yourself.”

“Prepare myself for wh–” Before he can finish the question, Jack grabs his wrist with one hand, getting a firm grip on the gun with the other. He slides his hand up to seize Bitty’s forearm and swings him backwards into the wall. He releases Bitty’s arm and shoves him firmly against the wall, pressing his forearm into Bitty’s chest. Bitty relinquishes the gun, expecting Jack to let go. But he doesn’t. He’s just staring down at Bitty with an alarming level of intensity and suddenly Bitty is acutely aware of how close they are. 

Bitty panics. He kicks Jack in the shin, which seems to throw him back into fight-mode, because he secures the gun behind his back and grabs Bitty’s arm with lightning speed, preparing to flip Bitty onto the ground. All Bitty can think to do is to bring Jack down with him, so he grabs Jack’s belt and then they're both falling to the ground. Bitty lands flat on his back on the floor, with Jack sprawled on top of him. It’s like being crushed by a wall of muscle.

They both try to push themselves up at the same time, and it ends with Bitty leaning on his elbows and Jack falling back onto him. Jack places his hands on either side of Bitty and levers himself up, and they're left staring at each other for a couple seconds before a cold voice cuts through the silence of the gym.

“Well, well, well, isn't this touching?” 

Both of them scramble to their feet and turn to face the doorway. A man of medium height stands there, a black and white snapback on his head, brim backward. He’s wearing a plaid button down, and he looks like a hipster. His hair is blond, with a cowlick in the front, and he looks altogether too pleased with himself for Bitty’s liking. Behind him is a taller guy with sandy brown hair and his arms crossed over his chest. Bitty has no idea how long he’s been standing there, and he’s not sure he wants to know.

Jack immediately steps in front of Bitty. “Kenny.” The look on the blond man’s face sours, and Bitty can see why. He can’t imagine anyone calling this guy Kenny and living to tell the tale. There’s something about him that just screams predatory instinct. He’s like a shark, all dead eyes and smooth charm while he moves in for the kill.

The blond man smirks. “Zimms. How long has it been?”

“Not nearly long enough.” Jack folds his arms over his chest. “What are you doing here, Kenny?”

The man bristles and steps farther into the gym, the brown haired man trailing only a few steps behind, the look on his face anything but pleased to be here. _A shark and a jackal,_ Bitty thinks.

“It’s Parse, these days, actually,” he says, and adjusts his snapback. “I was in the area, and thought I’d stop by and say hello. But it looks like you’re,” he pauses, “busy.” Parse gestures to the other man. “This is Swoops, by the way.” Swoops nods and takes up a post by the door, every inch the enforcer.

“I know who he is. What do you really want?” Jack snaps. “We both know you’re not here for a social call.”

He shrugs and continues his circling tour of the gym, edging closer and closer. “Well, I’m hearing good things out west about your little band of thieves, and I’ve got a job that needs doing. That is, if you’re interested. Not too busy saving kittens from trees these days, are we?”

“What kind of job?”

“It’s a hit. A job for a sniper.” Parse glances down at his hands, inspecting his nails. “You used to be so good at those, remember? God, those were the days. Back before you got scared to get a little blood on your hands. Kabul was really something. We must have been up on that rooftop for hours. The wind was up, but somehow you managed it in one shot–”

Bitty's eyes are fixed on Jack, so he can see every minute change of expression. He sees the look on Jack’s face shifting, from suspicion to recollection to, surprisingly, guilt. By the time Parse starts talking about Kabul, Jack’s hands are shaking. That's when Bitty knows he has to put a stop to this. He glares at Parse and interrupts, “I think we get the picture, thank you.” 

Both faces snap to look at him, with twin expressions of shock. Parse recovers first, moving in close deceptively fast. It seems like he takes about two steps before he's looming over Bitty. “You _are_ keeping interesting company nowadays, aren't you, Zimms? Who knew the kid could talk?”

Bitty looks him directly in the face. “That's not all I can do.”

One of Parse’s eyebrows quirks upward, and the corner of his mouth tugs to the side in the beginning of a smile. “You get more and more fun by the second, kid.” He grabs Bitty’s chin with his thumb and forefinger and forces it up, so that their faces are only centimeters apart. “I see why he keeps you around.”

And you know what, normally Bitty is perfectly fine with being this close to men. With any other person, he might even fling back some kind of retort. But this guy is just too unsettling for this situation to be at all comfortable. This blond creature grasping his chin is inhuman, cold blooded. Bitty continues to glare, disgust pulling at his upper lip.

With his free hand, Parse runs his knuckles along Bitty’s cheek. “You sure know how to pick ‘em, Zimms,” he comments.

Then, suddenly, a hand grabs Parse by the shoulder and spins him 180 degrees, and Bitty pulls free from his grip. He steps to one side, and Jack is facing down Parse, his entire body filled with tension, a murderous expression on his face. “Keep your hands off, Kent,” he says, gritting his teeth. 

Bitty stares at him for a second. That’s a little… possessive, isn’t it? They’re not really friends, so he doesn’t know why Jack’s being so protective. He must really hate this Parse guy. 

By the door, Swoops steps forward away from the wall. But Parse tilts his head back and laughs, so clearly relaxed that Swoops returns to his station. He grins. “You never cease to amuse me, Zimms.”

“Just give me the job details and get out before I make your friend step in.” Jack folds his arms and sets his jaw. 

Parse smirks, and without breaking eye contact, snaps at Swoops, who produces a manila folder from out of nowhere and hands it to Jack. He opens it and flips through the documents inside briefly, then nods.

“Now get out.”

Parse laughs again and makes for the door, one hand on Swoops’s shoulder. As he leaves, he turns back to Bitty and winks, then pulls the door shut behind him.

Jack keeps up the stern facade until the door clicks shut, then as soon as the other two are gone, he unfolds his arms and rushes to Bitty. He rests his hands on Bitty’s shoulders, holding him at arm’s length to inspect him. “Are you okay?”

Bitty blinks. What?He’s not sure how to respond. Here Jack was all protective a moment ago and now he’s right here and looking at Bitty with those big blue eyes of his all full of concern and _touching_ him. Jack is touching him. _What._

“Bittle.” Jack shakes Bitty’s shoulder a little, and there’s something bordering on panic in his face. “ _Bitty_.”

Bitty shakes himself. “I’m… I’m fine. But who in the sam hill was that?”

Jack lets go, although he continues to look at Bitty as if he might break any second. “That’s a very long and complicated story.”

Bitty puts one hand on his hip. “So summarize.” 

Jack runs a hand through his hair. “His name’s Kent Parson. We used to be on a special ops team together, back in Afghanistan. Some… stuff happened, and we haven’t spoken since. He runs a crime syndicate out of Las Vegas that isn’t quite as… moral as I try to keep things.”

“So, why would he even offer you a job?”

Jack shrugs. “No idea. But I guess I’ll have to take it, now.” He sighs. “It’s in Reno. I hate Reno. And I’m going to have to leave someone in charge while I’m gone, and that’s going to be a nuisance. Not to mention, doing a hit by myself is going to be… ugh.” He trails off and looks at Bitty. “You should come with me.”

Which is just – they’re not _friends_. Jack doesn’t _like_ him. “Why would you want me to come with? Wouldn’t Lardo be better? She’s got more experience. Or, you know, Chowder would be more helpful if you got caught. That boy doesn’t pull his punches.”

Jack shoves his hands in his pockets. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re smart, and good at avoiding notice. And I figured we might get the chance to spar a couple of times in Reno.” He smiles slightly. “Can’t let you get out of practice now that we’re finally getting somewhere, eh?”

Bitty narrows his eyes. _What is your game, Zimmermann?_ he thinks. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s go to Reno.”

***

Jack leaves Lardo in charge, because Lardo is terrifyingly competent. As in, she once walked into a police station with nothing but an empty manila folder and a smile and managed to talk the police into letting Bitty out of a jail cell. That girl scares him.

They arrive in Reno in the mid-afternoon, and Jack makes a quick stop at an abandoned warehouse to pick up the weapons one of his contacts left there. Bitty waits outside in the rental car.

“So, what exactly is this job?” he asks as Jack gets back into the car, slinging a duffel bag into the backseat. “You haven’t told me anything.”

Jack buckles his seatbelt. Bitty starts driving. “So there’s this, uh, mob in Reno, really nasty guys, and the hit is on their leader, Jimmy.”

Bitty raises an eyebrow. “Jimmy.”

“Yeah.”

“Jimmy the mob boss.”

“Uh huh.”

“And when, pray tell, are we supposed to get this… Jimmy out of the picture?”

Jack glances down at his watch. “Sunset’s in an hour, so in 45 minutes. Turn left at the next street.”

Bitty does. “You don’t think we’re cutting it a little close here?”

He shrugs. “Nah, it’s right around the corner. We’ll be fine.” He points through the windshield at a rundown apartment complex. “That’s the place. We’ll park around the back and head up to the roof.”

Five minutes later, they’re climbing up ten flights of stairs, Jack leading the way with dogged determination. He’s somehow moving faster than Bitty, even though he’s the one carrying the duffel bag that has to weigh upwards of forty pounds. 

It’s the height difference. Has to be. By the time they make it to the roof, Bitty’s out of breath while Jack looks as impassive as ever. More so, actually. Jack heads to the edge of the roof and starts setting up. He unzips the duffel and pulls out a tripod, then unfolds it and props it on the waist-high ledge. He goes back to the duffel, and while he’s working, Bitty peers over the ledge.

Below is a fairly deserted parking lot, with a few cars dotting his line of sight. He can’t see any people around, which is a good sign. He looks back over at Jack, who’s busily cleaning a sniper rifle. He sets a penny on the ledge and drips a dark liquid on it, then watches it intently until the penny starts to turn blue. 

Jack gestures him away from the ledge. “Sight lines, Bitty.” And since when has Jack called him by his nickname? It doesn’t make sense, not after the fiasco in the subway. But Bitty doesn’t have time to think about that right now, not in the middle of a job. It’s just unprofessional.

“Right.” Bitty backs up, moving to stand behind Jack’s shoulder. The sun has just begun to dip below the horizon. Bitty pulls out his phone and checks the time. Fifteen minutes until it’s time, and for some reason, he’s the one who’s nervous. Which is just ridiculous, because he’s not even the one doing work here. Bitty’s just along for the ride. 

Jack puts the rifle on the tripod and balances the butt against his hip. He sticks a finger in his mouth and then holds it up, presumably to check for wind direction. He adjusts the position of the tripod, then checks again. He nods once and crouches to look through the scope. 

Bitty checks his phone again. Ten minutes. God. “Jack?” he says, suddenly filled with the need to say something, anything.

Jack stands and turns. “Hm?”

“Aren’t you nervous?”

He shrugs and turns back to the rifle, peering over the ledge one more time. Then his frame tenses, and his grip on the ledge borders on white-knuckled. “ _Tabarnak_.” Jack ducks down and reaches behind him to pull Bitty into a crouch.

“What’s going on?” Bitty whispers. He creeps over to the ledge and peers over it. There’s a man in the parking lot below, walking toward a car. Bitty recognizes him from the photos in the manila folder. It’s Jimmy. And he’s holding the hand of a little girl who can’t be more than six years old. Both Jimmy and the girl are smiling and talking, and in a terrible moment of clarity, Bitty realizes that she’s his daughter.

Bitty looks at Jack, whose face is set in pale determination. He reaches for the tripod, and Bitty sees that Jack’s hands are shaking. Badly.

This is going to be a problem.

Jack sits back and closes his eyes, takes a breath, then peers through the scope. Bitty’s looking over the ledge when Jimmy picks the girl up and swings her around. They’re both laughing.

Jack lets go of the rifle and scrambles back. His breathing is sharp and jagged, and his eyes are wide with panic. “I can’t– I can’t get a clean shot.” He looks down at his hands as if they’ve betrayed him and lets out a shaky, panicky laugh. “ _Marde_.”

Bitty crouches at his side and grabs his hands. “Hey. Jack. Look at me.” Jack’s gaze shifts to him, and he’s pinned under the weight of those intensely sad eyes. It’s at this moment that Bitty realizes that he has no idea what to say, no idea how to even begin approaching this. But with time running out and Jack looking at him like he’s drowning and Bitty’s a life raft, what else can he do but try?

Bitty takes a deep breath. “You don’t have to do this right now. We can wait until he’s alone.”

“But he’s leaving, what if he takes the kid with him?”

Bitty grabs Jack’s shoulder. “Then we’ll try again when we’re sure he’s alone. We’ve got time, honey. We’ve got time.” He glances back toward the parking lot, where Jimmy and the little girl are still standing and talking. 

Okay. He can fix this. He can. Bitty turns back to Jack, and this time, he doesn’t flinch under the weight of his gaze. He takes Jack’s hands and squeezes them. “Deep breaths, honey.” Then he remembers his asthmatic cousin Ethan and the breathing exercises the entire family learned.

“Right. Um. Okay. Breathe in, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Hold, two, three, four. Breathe out, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.” Bitty repeats the exercise a few times, and by the third repetition, Jack’s breathing is back to normal. Or at least, as close to normal as it’s likely to get for the foreseeable future.

Down in the parking lot, there’s the sound of conversation. Bitty lets go of Jack’s hands and moves to look back over the ledge, where Jimmy’s now talking to a woman. The little girl is clinging to the woman’s legs, and neither looks happy. Lord. Can this get any worse? 

But there’s a glimmer of hope, when the woman slaps Jimmy across the face, hard, and picks up the little girl. With a cutting retort that Bitty can’t hear, she storms back toward the doors to the apartment building. Jimmy watches her go, his face unreadable.

“Jack,” Bitty hisses. “Coast is clear.”

There’s silence for a split second, and Bitty glances back over his shoulder. Behind him, Jack closes his eyes and lets out a deep breath, his hands clenching, then slowly relaxing. A moment later, he’s back, looking through the scope of the rifle and making minute adjustments for wind.

Below them, Jimmy continues to stare at the grimy glass doors. He shakes his head and starts to turn away.

“Jack,” Bitty repeats, more urgently this time. If Jimmy gets away now, there’s no telling when they’ll manage to track him down again. “Take the shot.”

Jack takes the shot. It’s good. And, Lord, it’s almost anticlimactic when Jack stands and looks over the edge at the pool of blood on the pavement. He nods once, and then starts packing up his gear with a grim expression on his face.

Bitty hesitates. Maybe he shouldn’t say anything. Jack’s fine, right? Jack is a sniper. This is what he does. But looking at his face and hearing the hitch in his breath is enough to tell Bitty that something is deeply wrong.

Jack picks up the duffel bag and starts to sling it over his shoulder, but before he can, Bitty grabs the strap and pulls it from his grip. He hikes the bag over one shoulder and walks toward the stairs.

“You don’t have to do that,” Jack says.

Bitty shrugs. “I know.” He pauses. “You can talk to me, you know? If you want to.”

Jack looks at him out of the corner of one eye. “Yeah.”

***

An hour later, they’ve arrived at their seedy motel on the edge of town. The paint on the siding is chipped, and the _No_ on the _Vacancy_ sign flickers on and off every few seconds. Bitty glances at Jack from the driver’s seat. They’re criminals, sure, but does that mean they have to stay in this kind of place? It’s like they’re actively playing into stereotypes.

The woman at the reception desk is wearing too much perfume and too much lipstick, and not enough of anything else. When Jack gives her the name he made the reservations under, she looks much too pleased to be telling them that their reservation has been lost. Bitty’s beginning to understand why Jack hates Reno so much, if all the people here are like this.

“Is there really no other room left?” Jack asks, scrubbing at his eyes with the palm of his hand and getting that look that means he’s going to start getting intimidating soon.

Bitty can see the woman preparing to tell them that there isn’t. He glares at her, hard, and she sighs. “There is one–”

“We’ll take it,” Jack says. His tone brooks no argument. The woman hands him a rusted key, her lips pursed into a tight smile. On another day, Bitty might muse over what unfortunate event may have happened in her life to make her such an unpleasant person. Today, though, he just blesses her heart as passive-aggressively as he possibly can.

As they head for their room, Bitty whispers, “Is everyone in Reno so...” He tries to find the right word and fails.

“Pretty much.” Jack shrugs.

The room is–

Well. Let’s back up.

They’re walking down the hallway, Bitty carefully avoiding most of the stains on the carpet and glancing around at every odd noise. Their room is, of course, at the end of a long hallway that Bitty could swear he’s seen before in a horror movie. And Lord, sure, they’re criminals, but that doesn’t mean Bitty doesn’t get a little nervous every now and again. So he sticks close to Jack and keeps a sharp eye out.

When they get to room 13 (of course it’s number 13. Why on earth wouldn’t it be?), Jack inserts the key into the lock and struggles with it for a few seconds before it clicks. He pushes the door open with his hip, reaches in and flips the light switch, then steps inside. Bitty follows, inspecting the bathroom first. It looks like there’s something alive in the shower drain, and there aren’t even the little soaps and bottles of shampoo to steal, so he returns to the main room. He stops short next to Jack, who’s at a standstill in front of the bed.

The single bed.

Great googly moogly.

“Well,” Jack says, “now we know why that lady was being so weird about this room. She was just being a homophobe.”

Bitty steals a glance at him. Jack Zimmermann, Straight Boy ©, knows what a homophobe is and can correctly identify one? _Well, butter me up and call me a biscuit._ Still, Bitty isn’t about to make this some big thing when it’s just that Jack is slightly less oblivious than he thought.

“I’ll take the floor,” Jack offers, and Bitty feels his heart sink just a little.

“No, it’s fine,” he says. “You take the bed.” Bitty grabs a pillow. “I’ll be fine down here.” 

But Jack grabs the other side of the pillow before he can do anything. “Don’t be silly. You can’t sleep down there. It’s probably molding.” He seems to come to a decision. “We’ll just have to share for the night. We’re both adults, and it’s not like you’re–” Jack hesitates, “some stranger.” He pulls the pillow from Bitty’s fingers and puts it back on the bed.

Bitty tries to keep his heart rate under control and his voice steady. “Fair warning, I steal the blankets.”

Jack’s lips curve into a grin. “I’d expect nothing less from a thief of your caliber.”

***

A sudden lurch on the other side of the mattress jolts Bitty awake. “Jack?” he says, still groggy. “Everything okay?” But Jack doesn’t answer. Bitty yawns and turns onto his side, switching on the lamp. “Jack?”

Jack is sitting up, hunched against the headboard, almost curled in on himself. He’s breathing hard, and clenching his hands into fists. 

“Hey,” Bitty sits up next to him. “Did you have a bad dream?” Jack still doesn’t say anything, so Bitty reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder. Jack immediately jerks away from his touch, and Bitty retracts the hand. “I’m sorry,” he says, quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Jack takes a shuddering breath, and his hands go slack. He leans back against the headboard, letting his head thunk against the wood, and scrubs at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I hate this,” he says, dully.

Bitty hesitates. It probably isn’t his place to say anything. “Do you want to talk about… this?”

Jack waves a hand. “It’s… complicated.”

“I’ve got time.” 

Jack glances over at him, then sighs. His hands drop to the blanket, where he starts picking at the stitching on the hem. “You know I’m ex-military,” he starts. “A lot of what I did back then… disagrees with me.”

Bitty pauses, trying to parse that statement. “So it was a nightmare?”

“It’s fine, it’s nothing I’m not used to–”

“Jack.” Bitty fixes him with a pointed look.

“Yes, okay, fine, it was a nightmare.” Jack scowls and stares down at the hem, where the edge of the fabric is starting to unravel. “I’m fine.”

“Tell that to the comforter,” Bitty says. Jack drops the fabric and folds his hands together. Bitty tries again. “Look,” he says, “you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to. Just seems like it’s still upsetting you.”

Jack hesitates. “It’s nothing you need to worry about.” He lies back down, pulling the blankets up over his head. Then, from under the blankets, he says “Just go back to sleep,” voice muffled.

Bitty looks down at the lump under the blankets. “Okay?” he says, and turns out the light.

***

Bitty awakens to the sound of rustling somewhere near the door. He opens his mouth to ask what Jack’s doing up again at this hour, but then he feels Jack stir in the bed next to him, clearly still asleep. Cold dread envelops his chest.

Silently, he peers through the darkness, and can just distinguish a faint shadow moving toward the bed. Bitty’s mind is racing. He can’t wake Jack up now, not without alerting the intruder that they’re aware of his presence. He’s on his own.

As his eyes adjust to focus on the figure, Bitty sizes it up. Male, by his build and stance, and a few inches taller than Bitty. Slender, though. Bitty’s eyes flick to the man’s hand, and the moonlight glints off metal. The stranger is almost at the bed, and he’s got a knife. 

He has to act quickly. Knife. Not that different from a gun. What did Jack say to do about a gun? _Control the weapon_. Bitty flips the covers onto Jack and flings himself toward the end of the bed. The figure grunts in surprise. Bitty grabs the man’s wrist and tries to lever his arm upward, but the man lurches back, pulling Bitty off the edge of the bed.

As Bitty goes down, his only thought is to keep the knife away, so he twists the man’s arm away from himself as far as he can. Bitty lands with a thud on top of him, and in the darkness, he hears a low groan. The light is bad, and all he can see is the knife lying a few feet away and the dark stain rapidly leeching into the man’s clothes and the carpet. He hears the rasp of the stranger’s heavy breathing and sees his chest rising and falling. Suddenly, the man grabs Bitty’s shoulders and rolls him onto the floor, pinning him. 

Bitty brings his knee sharply upward, and the man groans again. Then Bitty hits him in the throat with the heel of his hand, and the man rolls onto the floor.

Bitty scrambles to his feet and backs away toward the nightstand. 

The man’s hand twitches, and after a moment, Bitty realizes that it’s groping for the knife. It finds the hilt, and the man gets to his feet and lunges at Bitty.

Bitty reaches back blindly for some kind of weapon, and his searching hands hit cool metal. The lamp. He grabs the lamp’s base in one hand and rips the plug from the wall, then swings it at the man’s head. It connects solidly, and the intruder falls to the floor and drops the knife. Bitty kicks the knife away and stands motionless, tense, expecting the intruder to spring to his feet at any moment. 

The man doesn’t move, and Bitty wonders if the blow might have killed him. 

The lamp crashes to the floor, shattering near his feet, and Bitty takes a step back, which is when he realizes that he can’t breathe. His breaths are fast and shallow, and when he looks down at his hands, they’re shaking and covered in blood.

How did that happen?

Bitty tries to wipe his hands on his shirt, but that’s covered in blood too, and his chest is so tight it feels like he’s going to explode, and God, what’s he going to do? 

“Bitty?” Jack’s voice is low and concerned. “What’s going on?” Bitty can’t answer. The mattress creaks as Jack sits up. “Did you drop something?”

Jack’s feet appear in his line of sight, and Bitty can pinpoint the exact moment Jack sees the blood because he rushes to Bitty’s side. He grabs Bitty’s shoulder and turns him this way and that, trying to find the source of the bleeding. “Mon Dieu, qu’est-il arrivé?” The words come out in a rush, blurred with desperation and rising in pitch and volume. Jack takes a breath. “Are you hurt? Bitty. Bitty!” 

“What?” Bitty doesn’t know how he manages to get the word out.

“Are you hurt?” Jack repeats.

“No!” Bitty’s voice breaks. “There was a guy in the room, and he had a knife, and he was going to stab you, and–”

“Where?” Jack interrupts. Bitty points to the floor, where the man is still flat on his back. Jack digs through his bag and pulls out a garrotte, then goes over to the man and ties his wrists. When he comes back, his brow is furrowed and there’s blood on his fingertips. “That guy is bleeding,” he says. “Why is he bleeding?”

Bitty’s face crumples. “I fell onto him, and I couldn’t control the weapon, and then there was blood everywhere–” He’s really not okay with this sequence of events. On a certain level, he’d like nothing more than to start screaming at the top of his lungs and never, ever stop. 

He’s cut off by Jack’s hands reaching out and pulling him into the tightest embrace of his life. Bitty’s lost for a second, before his arms are around Jack’s shoulders, seemingly of their own volition. “ _Crisse_ ,” says Jack, his voice in Bitty’s ear. “You scared me.”

Bitty buries his face in Jack’s shoulder. The tension drains from his body and he feels his breath return. And for a moment, the screaming panic in his mind is silenced. He lets himself enjoy the warmth and relaxes more deeply. Jack’s arms stay strong and firm, supporting his weight, and Bitty feels safe.

That’s when it hits him that he has no idea why Jack’s being so nice all of a sudden. They’re not friends. They might have been, but then Bitty just had to go and make him uncomfortable with that kissing thing, and now he just doesn’t know what this is. Bitty pulls away and takes a step back. “What are you– what are we going to do?” He can feel himself working back into a panic. “Someone just tried to kill us, oh Lord, what do you even do about that?” He runs a hand through his hair and tries not to look at the man on the floor.

Jack’s expression hardens. “You’re right. I have a lot of questions. And I know exactly who to ask.” He picks his phone up from the nightstand and starts tapping away. “Why don’t you go into the bathroom and clean up? I’ll take care of this.” He puts the phone to his ear and nods at Bitty. “Go on,” he mouths.

Bitty looks down at his clothes and is struck by the desire to get the bloody shirt off of himself that very second. He pulls it off over his head and searches for his bag, hunting through it for the spare he’d packed. Behind him, Jack makes a funny choking noise, and Bitty turns, concerned.

“You okay?” he asks.

Jack’s eye twitches. “Fine,” he says, voice strangled. Bitty grabs a clean shirt and heads for the tiny bathroom, pointedly ignoring what looks like mold growing out of the shower drain. He scrubs at his hands in the sink, watching the water turn red and circle the drain. When the water runs clear, he dries his hands and puts on the other shirt.

In the other room, he can faintly hear Jack talking on the phone. At first, it’s clear he’s trying to keep his voice down so Bitty won’t hear, but Bitty didn’t get to be a professional thief by being unobservant. He leans against the doorframe of the bathroom and listens.

"Y'a un tueur à gages dans ma chambre de motel.” Jack pauses, as if he’s been cut off. “Va chier, ‘ _en anglais_ ’! J’suis québécois. J’parle français. Sais-tu quelque chose de cet _assassin_? Non? Eh ben, faut que tu viennes ici et t'occupes de ceci."

"Je m'en calisse si t'es occupé! Viens ici juste putain maintenant!"

French. Again. Dagnabbit. Bitty hears Jack sigh and take a few steps. He doesn’t say anything else, so Bitty waits a few more seconds before going back to the main room. He tries to act casual. 

“So, what now?” he asks. 

Jack looks down at the man on the floor, who’s now very clearly awake and struggling against his restraints. Then he looks at the blood, which has already begun to coagulate on the carpet. “I just hope he brings bleach.”

Twenty minutes later, after Jack’s ripped down the plastic shower curtain and rolled the man onto it to prevent any further damage to the carpet, Bitty finds himself walking alone down the hallway toward the main desk, peering around every corner for murderers. There aren’t any, but that doesn’t make him any less nervous.

Then he gets to the front desk, and the pit of his stomach drops out. It isn’t a murderer. It’s worse.

Parse is standing across from the desk, holding a bottle of bleach in a loose grip. This time, he isn’t dressed like some latte-swilling, honey-collecting, save-the-whales hipster. He’s wearing a black suit and tie, with a black shirt, like some monochrome 1940s gentleman bank robber from Alabama. Bitty hates Alabama. Parse raises his eyebrows at Bitty. 

“Sup?”

Nope. This isn’t happening. Bitty blinks, but Parse is still there, the angle of his eyebrows quizzical. “So, I heard you guys had a pest problem?” he says, weighting each word carefully.

Bitty isn’t okay with this. But he leads Parse back down the hallway to the room in silence and goes in. He doesn’t hold the door for Parse. It’s been that sort of a day.

But Parse doesn’t seem too fazed by Bitty’s hostility. Maybe it’s just something he’s used to, being an internationally reputed crime boss. Comes with the territory, Bitty expects.

Jack stands up as they enter, eyes narrowing, but Parse holds up the bottle of bleach, shrugging and making a sympathetic face. “At least we can deal with the carpet?” he says.

“That isn’t quite what I meant when I said you had to deal with this,” Jack grumbles, but lets Parse through to kneel by the bloodstain and make tsking noises. 

Parse looks up. “You could have been a little more careful.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” says Jack, “I was almost just murdered in my sleep, but sure, I could have been a little more careful with where the blood went. Certainly.”

Parse raises his eyebrows and purses his lips. “Mhm. Sure. You telling me your boy here gave our guy this love tap?”

“I can talk, you know,” Bitty says.

“Sure,” he replies, as if remarking on the weather, “but in the span of our acquaintance you’ve never once said anything worth my time, so why should I bother now?”

This is fine. Bitty’s just going to straight up murder him as soon as Jack leaves the room.

“What I don’t understand is why I’m even here,” Parse continues. “I mean, sure, I brought the bleach or whatever, but you guys really should have been able to deal with that yourselves. It’s not like you’ve never cleaned blood off the upholstery, right?”

Bitty just glares at him.

“You’re here,” he says, gritting his teeth, “because the job _you gave us_ ended up getting us targeted by assassins.”

“To be fair,” Parse says, “it was only one _little_ assassin. And you guys are criminals. Are you honestly telling me you can’t handle one guy trying to kill you?”

Bitty takes a deep breath. “I did handle it. I shouldn’t have had to, and that seems like a you problem.”

“Ugh, fine,” Parse says, rolling his eyes. He leans over and grabs the assassin’s chin to study his face. He sighs, and his shoulders slump. “Ah, fuck,” he groans. “It’s the fucking Chads. I really hate these guys.” He sits back on his ankles and considers. “Well,” he says, “The obvious thing to do would be to go intimidate the shit out of them. And I don’t think it’s such a good idea to send Jack, since they were just trying to stab him.” He stands and shoves his hands in his pockets. “So I’ll go.”

“Why would you do that?” says Jack.

He shrugs. “Been a while since I did the obvious thing. Gotta keep people on their toes.”

Jack raises his eyebrows. “I’m sending Bitty with you.” Bitty glances at him, shocked. Like he’s going to be so much help.

Parse laughs. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Absolutely not.”

Parse bares his teeth in a fierce approximation of a grin. “Good.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and sends a quick text. 

“Hang on, how are we going to get this guy out of here?” Bitty asks, pointing at the man lying on the floor. “We can’t just walk out through the lobby. There’s a receptionist there.” Then he hears a soft tapping on the window and freezes. “What’s that?”

“What?” Parse looks up from his phone. “That’s just Swoops.”

Jack sighs. “You brought him with you?”

“I told you I was busy. But no,” he mutters, “‘ _juste putain maintenant_ ’, you said.” He goes to the window and opens the curtains, and Bitty can see Swoops standing outside, his face lit by the glow of his phone. Swoops looks up and waves.

Parse unlocks the window and slides it open, then goes back to stand over the man on the floor. He hooks his elbows under the man’s arms and lifts, hauling him over to the window. He looks up at Jack. “Wanna give me a hand?”

“Not really,” Jack says. He smiles.

“Fucker,” Parse mutters.

Bitty sighs and grabs the man’s ankles, and they lift him through the window, where Swoops hauls him into a fireman’s carry and starts toward the parking lot. It’s at this moment that Bitty realizes he still hasn’t heard Swoops say a word.

Parse nods and vaults onto the windowsill. “Right. So, I’m done.” He swivels to face them and gives a two-fingered salute, and his hands are stained with blood, but he doesn’t seem to care. “Keep the bleach,” Parse says, and leaps out the window and into the darkness.

Bitty just stares at the empty window for a second, then turns to Jack. “Uh. What?”

Jack sighs. “Yeah.” He picks up Bitty’s shoes and hands them over. “You’d better hurry if you’re going to catch up with them.”

Bitty finds them in the dark parking lot, Parse leaning up against the side of a car that's a lot less flashy than Bitty would have expected. It's not even a muscle car. It's just a mundane, black sedan. Swoops is hunched over, restraining the hitman in the trunk and bandaging the wound on his abdomen. 

Parse folds his arms. Somewhere between the window and the parking lot, his hat has vanished. "You took your time." He opens the passenger seat and hops in. "Get in the back if you're coming. Either way, don't waste my time just standing there." Parse leans out the door and looks around to the back. "Swoops. Hurry up."

Bitty gets in the back seat. "Why do I have to sit back here?" he asks.

"Because you weren't invited," says Parse. Swoops gets into the driver's seat and starts the car. "You know where you're going?"

Swoops nods and starts to drive. After they're out of the parking lot, he switches on the radio to something with a woman's low voice talking about the trials of love. Parse rolls his eyes. "Seriously? This again?"

Swoops doesn't say a word, but somehow his posture conveys a certain unbearable smugness. He turns the radio up.

"Um," Bitty says, "Excuse me." Swoops sighs and turns the radio back down a few notches. "What exactly is the plan? I mean, we're not just going to bust into these people's headquarters and start shouting." There's a long pause. "Right?"

"Yeah, that was pretty much my plan, actually," says Parse. He switches the radio off, ignoring the look of abject betrayal Swoops is giving him.

"Of course it was," Bitty mutters. "You didn't take into account the fact that these people were literally _just_ trying to kill me? As in, there is a murderer locked up in your trunk bleeding out from a gut wound?"

"Oh, I'm sure he's not bleeding out." Parse's tone is airy. He could be talking about the weather. "Swoops is very good at first aid stuff. Right?" He pauses to look at Swoops for some sign of agreement, but the latter just sighs. "Anyway, these guys and me, we go back a long way. We probably won't even get shot at."

"Shot at?" Bitty winces at the crack in his voice.

Parse turns in his seat to shoot him a perplexed look. "Yeah? You got a problem with that? I dunno what kind of Robin-Hood-ass bullshit operation Jack’s running these days, but when we were working out of Kabul, he wouldn't have even flinched at this kind of thing."

Bitty doesn’t want to think about the kinds of things that Jack and Parse used to get up to in Kabul. He can just tell that Parse is angling to drag Jack back into whatever morally dubious operation he’s running now. Whatever they used to do, it’s clear that Jack is different now. He’s not like Parse anymore, if he ever was. Bitty seriously doubts that, had Parse taken on this hit himself, he would have spared that little girl the trauma of witnessing her father’s murder, whereas Jack worked himself into a full-blown panic attack over it. Going back to Parse’s way of doing things would destroy him. Bitty can’t let that happen.

“Things change. Maybe he grew a conscience, unlike you,” Bitty snaps.

"Jesus, kid, what do you want from me?" Parse replies.

"I want you to stay away from Jack!" 

"Look, Biscuits and Gravy, I don't want your boyfriend," Parse snaps. "I have one of those. I want Jack's sorry ass out of this shit mess, and I want him and you to go back to Massachusetts where I don't have to deal with your nauseating blond adorableness. Seriously. It's like looking at a younger, more innocent version of me. It's creepy."

"Oh," Bitty says, his voice very small. So Parse isn't actually gunning for Jack. But then another question occurs to him. “Wait, so why did you even offer him this job?” 

Parse starts counting on his fingers. “I was busy. It looked boring. I wanted to say hi.” He shrugs. “Pick one.”

“Pick up a dang phone if you want to say hello,” Bitty says. He pauses. "And Jack isn't my boyfriend.”

Parse exchanges a look of disbelief with Swoops. "Uh huh. Sure. Trust me, kid, whatever's going on between you and him is not platonic." Bitty opens his mouth to speak, but Parse holds up a finger. "Let me prove it to you." He turns to Swoops. "Swoops. Lemme ask you something. Would Jack Zimmermann send in someone he doesn't trust to gather information?"

Swoops shakes his head.

"There you go," Parse says. "He trusts you."

"That doesn't mean anything–"

"I'm not finished. Swoops, in your experience, does Jack Zimmermann take other people on hits with him?" Swoops shakes his head. "Does he share beds?" Another head shake. "Does he call up estranged ex-partners to dispose of hitmen he is perfectly capable of dealing with himself?" Swoops shrugs. “I mean, christ, the way he stepped in front of you to _shield_ you from me the first time I _saw_ your tiny ass.” Parse tilts his head to one side, a feline smirk on his face. "Do you have any idea how homoerotic your relationship with him is? Come on. Let's not kid ourselves here. So why don't you cut it out with the hilariously-misplaced-insecurity-disguised-as-jealousy and back the fuck off? Otherwise I'm gonna have to put you in the trunk and bring the other guy up here. Bagged and gagged hitmen aren't nearly as annoying."

Bitty folds his arms and looks out the window. "I don't like you very much," he says. 

"No shit," Parse replies. Then he seems to notice that the radio program is back on. This time, the woman's voice is telling someone not to close her heart off to new possibilities. "Jesus christ, seriously? I turn my back for one fucking second–" He turns the radio off, but Swoops whacks his wrist and turns it back on.

Parse groans. "Fine. God." 

The radio program is objectively terrible. It seems to consist mostly of some woman named Delilah reading letters from disgustingly heartbroken people from around the country, giving corny advice, and filling in the extra time with sappy music. And the worst part of it is that Swoops hums along to every single song, because apparently he knows them all. Bitty doesn't want to admit it, but he's actually starting to side with Parse on this one.

"Are we there yet?" he asks.

"See?" Parse says. "Even the stowaway agrees that your taste in music is terrible." Swoops glares. Bitty wonders why he doesn’t verbally defend his apparently favorite radio program. He only seems to combat Parse’s complaints with facial expressions. Swoops turns onto a side street, parallel parking under a dimly glowing street lamp. He switches the radio off and takes the key out of the ignition, then unbuckles his seatbelt and gets out of the car.

Parse peers out the window. "Oh. We're here." He hops out of the car and goes around to the back, popping the trunk and helping Swoops to haul the hitman out.

Bitty goes to stand next to them. "So, where are we?"

"Western edge of Reno," Parse says. He points at the dark silhouette of a warehouse that looks all but abandoned. "That's where these guys hole up when they're on jobs in Reno, but Chad Skalitski should be there too. Not like him to leave his partner all by himself in the big, bad city, yeah?" Parse shakes the hitman's shoulder, and he groans. "Let's go see your boss, Rooney."

The door to the warehouse is made of solid metal, with a keypad on one side. Parse has the hitman by the scruff of the neck, holding him up so that he can just barely keep his balance. He sighs and looks at Swoops. "If you would?"

Swoops produces a handgun with a silencer attached to the barrel. He takes careful aim, exhales, then fires. The keypad explodes in a shower of sparks. Bitty shields his eyes. 

Parse kicks the door open and starts walking, fast enough that the hitman has to scramble to keep from falling. Bitty gets the feeling that even if he were to fall, Parse would just keep going, dragging him until he was able to get his balance again. Parse storms through the warehouse, stopping in front of a foldout table where a couple of people are sitting around playing cards. Bitty nearly has to jog to keep up, but Swoops manages to keep pace easily, with his much longer strides.

Parse flings the hitman down in front of the table. "Brought in your fucking garbage," he says cheerfully. A second later, there are three guns trained on him, but he doesn’t seem fazed. He holds out a hand behind him and snaps a couple times. “Gun, please.”

Swoops rolls his eyes but hands it over. He crosses his arms and looks unimpressed. Bitty sidesteps so that he’s hidden behind Swoops’s broad frame. There are a lot of guns in this room, and all the training with Jack about dealing with one gun is _not helping right now_. 

One of the card players, a woman with an improbably shiny gun, speaks up. “Who brings _in_ garbage?”

“I have never liked you, Melinda.” Parse levels the gun at the hitman’s head and starts chewing a piece of bubblegum. Then he seems to notice the only one of the card players still sitting down, a young guy with slick hair and a terrifyingly precise undercut. “Oh,” Parse says, waving. It’s so nonchalant and mundane Bitty could almost forget that he’s currently holding someone at gunpoint. “Hey, dude.”

Undercut looks up. “What’s up, Parse?” 

Parse shrugs. “Not much.” Then he turns back to the ringleader. “So. I have questions.”

The leader (Chad S.?) raises his free hand. “No. I have questions. What the fuck did you do to Chad?”

Parse raises his eyebrows. “What, this? Oh. I didn’t do that. I found him like this. I’m just cleaning up.” He grins. “Just call me Kent Parson, chambermaid-at-large.”

“Uh huh. Yeah. Where the fuck is Zimmermann?”

“Last I checked he was still alive, if that’s what you mean.” Parse shrugs. “But what I wanna know is what the hell you were thinking sending this asshole after him.” He kicks Chad R. directly in the stab wound. Chad R. groans, and Chad S. tightens his grip on his gun. 

“Careful there,” Parse says mildly, and flicks the safety off. He blows a bubble and pops it with his teeth. 

Swoops sighs. He inspects his nails. 

When Chad S. speaks again, his voice is tight. “It wasn’t personal.”

“No shit. Who hired you?”

“Client confidentiality–”

“Fuck off, Melinda,” Parse rolls his eyes. “I was talking to Chad.”

Chad shrugs. “Some guy named Ron. Operates out of Reno. Offered me a lot of money, so I sent my best.”

“Your best got taken out by a runt with a lamp.”

Bitty’s a little offended. He’d say something, but he doesn’t actually want the attention on him.

“You know what, fuck you. What do you want?”

“Oh, nothing. Just thought I’d return your boyfriend. Some damage may have occurred during shipping.” He shrugs. “Eh. So, I’m out.” He turns around and starts to walk out, Swoops falling into step behind him. Bitty scurries along, trying to catch up.

“Are those guys actually dating?” he asks.

“It’s their two year anniversary next week,” Parse says. “I’ll send them a flower arrangement. It’ll be chill.”

“I’m hungry,” Swoops says, nudging Parse. Bitty does a double take. The way Swoops looks and acts, Bitty had thought of him as this intense, gravelly-voiced guy. Probably someone who chops wood on the weekends. But the voice he hears is ridiculously smooth. Like a radio host on NPR. Like if red wine could speak.

“What did I tell you?” Parse says. “Should have eaten your linguine in the car.”

“What?” Bitty says.

Parse and Swoops exchange a look. “Shut up,” Parse says.

***

They meet Jack at the motel room. He has questions. 

“So, what did you find out?” Jack asks. He’s sitting on the bed with the bottle of bleach in one hand. 

“Chad said it was some guy named Ron, operating out of Reno.” Parse waves. “So, yup. Bye.”

Jack waves his hands. “Wait, wait, wait, what? Who’s Ron? Where in Reno? Does he have a last name? What does he do in Reno?”

He shrugs. “I didn’t ask.”

“I send you in for intel and you come back with this?” Jack stands. “Seriously?”

Parse holds up one finger. “Uh, so, I’m not actually your errand boy, _Jacques_. You want information, hire a fucking PI. Did it ever occur to you that I have other shit to do?” He pauses. “C’mon, Swoops.” Then Parse climbs out the open window.

Swoops looks toward the ceiling, as if he’s pondering the decisions that have led him to this moment. He sighs, and walks out the door, muttering, “Goddammit, Kent,” under his breath.

***

The flight back to Massachusetts is long, the snacks are stale, and Bitty has never been more grateful to arrive back at the Warenhaus. But then he opens the front door and hears indistinct shouting from upstairs. Lardo races by, then catches sight of them and skids to a halt in her sock-clad feet. 

“Oh,” she says. “You’re back. Thank god.” She pokes Bitty’s chest. “You have a lot to answer for.”

“What did I do?” Bitty spreads his hands wide.

Lardo narrows her eyes. “You know what you did.” Then there’s a low, rumbling explosion from upstairs.

Bitty flinches. “What was that?”

Lardo sighs and looks toward heaven. “Tango!” she yells.

In the distance, there’s a faint thud, then Tango yells back. “Sorry!” Lardo runs for the stairs, Jack and Bitty following close behind. Jack grabs the fire extinguisher from the base of the stairs on the way up. They follow the sound of shouting to the kitchen, where Dex and Holster are currently inspecting the remains of the microwave. Tango is standing near the stove, looking ashamed of himself.

“Yeah, it’s fried,” Dex says.

Holster groans. “This is the second time this week. First the toaster, now this? I just want to eat my Eggos in peace.”

“Sorry,” Tango says miserably.

Bitty glances at the oven. “Honey, why don’t you come away from there.” He ushers Tango toward the kitchen table and sits him down.

“See, this is what I’m talking about. Seriously. This kid is a total sweetheart, but the amount of shit he’s broken around here is getting unreasonable. He’s blown up the toaster and the microwave, and he somehow managed to _melt_ Dex’s alarm clock. And that was just today. I don’t get it.”

“Which one is Dex?” Tango whispers to Dex.

Dex’s shoulders slump. He closes his eyes and holds up one finger, then points at himself.

Tango’s face falls. “Sorry.”

“Are you still here, kid?” Lardo says. “Scram. Go find, uh, go find my laptop and bring it here.” Tango trips on the chair leg, but manages to catch himself, then hurries out the door. 

“Sounds like he’s got a propensity for blowing things up, eh?” Jack smiles.

Lardo glares. “Why are you so happy about this?”

He shrugs. “Beats Reno.”

Bitty pauses to think, and the realization suddenly hits him. “Weeeeell,” he says, “we don’t have an explosives expert.”

Lardo holds up a finger. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Worth a try,” Jack says.

“Fine,” Lardo says. “Fine. You deal with this. I’ll be in my room. Protecting my valuables.” She storms out the door, slamming into Tango, who promptly screams and drops her laptop. Lardo lets out an unholy screech of rage and collects the pieces of her laptop, then walks down the hallway, cursing and calling for Nursey.

Dex and Holster look at each other and head for the door, patting Tango on the shoulder. “Good luck,” says Holster.

Tango looks down at the floor.

Jack looks at Bitty and snorts, and Bitty can’t help but laugh too. Then they’re suddenly cackling hysterically, in the kitchen, leaving a very confused Tango to laugh nervously along with them. Jack wipes at the corners of his eyes and grins. “It’s good to be back.”

**Part Four: The Shitty Incident**

Tango spends pretty much the next month living out of a bunker in Providence, playing around with explosives and generally figuring out how to use them without injuring himself or those around him. When he’s finally allowed back in the Warenhaus, the first thing he does is trip over his own shoelaces.

“I don’t know how I feel about this,” Lardo says, clutching her new laptop in a death grip.

“It’ll be fine,” Bitty says. “Don’t even worry about it.”

From the look on her face, Bitty can tell that Lardo is actively worrying about it. She points at her eyes, then at Tango, and retreats up the stairs.

Even though he’s _technically_ supposed to have been reformed into a capable user of explosives, the team is noticeably reluctant to take Tango with them on jobs, and to a certain extent, Bitty understands why. It’s hard to trust that someone will be able to effectively use high grade explosives when they can’t even walk without tripping on air.

Even so, it’s getting a little ridiculous.

The first person to cave is Lardo, surprisingly. One afternoon, she goes out on a job with Tango in tow, carrying a duffel bag and wearing a satisfied look on his face. When they come back, there are soot stains all over his face and the duffel bag is mysteriously gone, but they’re both grinning like idiots, so Bitty assumes that it went okay.

After that, the rest of the team warms up to him pretty quickly. Ransom and Holster seem to decide that he’s fairly innocent and start inviting him to their weekly Dungeons and Dragons nights. Dex frequently reminds him to tie his shoes, and Lardo makes him watch crappy period drama and trash the costume design with her. Bitty doesn’t pretend to understand either of them, but hey. As long as Tango isn’t breaking everything in sight whenever Lardo’s within ten feet, Bitty doubts anyone is going to complain.

***

Bitty is mixing cupcake batter with a blank expression and an extreme amount of force. He hadn’t really had a chance to mentally catalogue everything that went down in Reno, but now that he thinks about it, he’s steamed. Honestly. Bitty may actually hunt Kent Parson down and straight up murder the guy. Every word of the conversation in the car is burned into Bitty’s brain, and he legitimately thinks he can feel steam building in his ears. How dare that _gremlin_ presume to _know Jack?_ As if they were still somehow _friends_? 

Bitty knows that maybe he’s been stewing on this a little more intensely than he should, but you know, it’s glaringly clear that Jack is still a little messed up about whatever they were doing back in the day, and Bitty cares about his emotional well being.

Maybe he shouldn’t, but he cares.

Then the thought hits him. Parse probably knows Jack pretty well, actually. They were friends. Maybe Parse is _right_.

Shit. Maybe Jack doesn’t hate Bitty. Maybe Jack… likes him? Not like that, of course, because that’s just ridiculous, but maybe they’re not actually mortal enemies?

“Yo, where the hell is Shitty?” Ransom raps on the countertop and holds up his D&D binder. Bitty doesn’t jump. He just has a minor heart palpitation. It’s fine. He needs to get bells for these boys. “He’s late for our Dungeons and Dragons party. Holster got pizza.”

Then, as if Bitty wasn’t startled enough, there’s suddenly a voice right in his ear. “Who’s Shitty?” Tango asks. Bitty yelps and flings his elbow back, stopping himself a second before he jabs Tango in the gut.

Seriously. Bells.

“Mustache,” Ransom supplies. 

Bitty takes a deep breath and tries to calm his heartbeat. “He’s had a case, remember? For the past month. He’s been working late. I think he actually sleeps under the desk at his office.” Then he hears something, a faint thudding noise from the first floor. Bitty tilts his head to one side to listen. “What is that?”

Ransom listens too. “I think someone’s at the door.” He starts walking toward the staircase, Bitty and Tango falling into step behind him. The thudding gets louder as they approach the front door, and Ransom opens it, looking perplexed.

“Shitty?”

Shitty sighs and stands up straight so that he’s no longer banging his forehead against the front door. Somehow, even though he’s wearing a suit, he manages to look like he’s been living out of his car. There are dark circles under his eyes the size of saucers, and the look in his eyes screams existential despair. He trudges through the door, pushing Ransom aside with his shoulder, and walks in the direction of his room. 

Bitty, Ransom, and Tango turn to watch him go. They hear the door to his room slam shut, and a couple seconds later, the shower turns on. 

Ransom purses his lips. “Did he just–” 

There’s a muffled exclamation of exasperation, and the sound of running water abruptly stops. The door to Shitty’s room opens, and he emerges, his suit now completely drenched. He trudges back toward the front door, shoes squishing with every step, wet hair hanging in his eyes, and a look of murder on his face. Shitty doesn’t say a word as he steps out onto the street. He just sighs and closes the door behind him.

“Do you think he knows it’s going to rain?” Tango says.

***

“Hey, it’s like, 9:30 at night. Have you seen Shitty today?” Nursey asks. He’s sitting on top of the kitchen counter eating a granola bar.

Bitty looks up from where he’s chopping onions. “What?” Where had Nursey come from? Then he processes the question. “No, I don’t think I have.”

Dex appears from nowhere and shoves Nursey off the counter. “Get your ass off the counter, Nurse. People eat off there.”

Nursey lands on his feet with catlike grace and adjusts his hat. “Directly off the counter? Come on, Poindexter. Get it together. Find a plate.” He turns to Bitty. “Anyway. Shouldn’t Shitty have come back here to like, get some food or something? He eats, right?”

Bitty sighs. Sooner or later, Shitty is going to have to start sleeping more than three hours a night. He purses his lips and studies Nursey and Dex. “You two are coming with me.”

“What?” Dex exclaims. “What does that _mean_?”

“Chill.” Nursey says, nudging Dex with his elbow. Then he looks at Bitty. “Where are we going?”

After twenty minutes of listening to his passengers bicker on the car ride over to Shitty’s office, Bitty isn’t so sure he made the right call on this one. Maybe he should have brought Chowder. Chowder would have been a good idea.

“–the amount of water wasted on lawn maintenance alone–”

“–dude, chill, have you never been outside–”

“Fuck you, I worked on a farm!”

“Boys!” Both Nursey and Dex look at him, mirrored expressions of confusion on their faces.

“What?” they say, calmly and in eerie unison.

Bitty closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath. “Shut up!” He parks and picks up the cheese tray from the passenger seat. For a brief moment, he considers locking Nursey and Dex in the car until they behave, but then he realizes that he doesn’t have that kind of time on his hands. Also he’s a little afraid that they’d scratch up the upholstery. 

“Okay, let’s go,” he says. 

Nursey gets out, holding his box of granola bars in one hand. “I’m just saying, not a fan of this concrete hellscape.”

Dex frowns. He doesn’t have anything to hold. Nursey sighs and hands over the box, and Dex looks a tad more satisfied. Nursey pats his shoulder awkwardly. “There you go, dude.”

Bitty sighs and leans on the buzzer, but nobody answers. Huh. He wouldn’t have thought Shitty would be out this late at night, with the amount of casework he’s been juggling. Plus, Lardo probably would have said something if he was going to take a break. Maybe he’s asleep? Bitty dismisses the thought. If Shitty’s in there, he’s probably caffeinated out the wazoo. 

“What’s going on?” Dex asks. 

“I have no idea.” Bitty pushes the buzzer for the address next to Shitty’s, and a woman’s voice answers. 

“Hello?”

Bitty looks into the camera and smiles his most winning smile. “Well, hi. So sorry to bother you, but I’m here to pick up my friend in the law office next door. Problem is, I think he fell asleep and isn’t answering the door.”

There’s a rush of static over the speaker. “Mr. Knight? Oh, sure. Tell him to keep it down a little, would you? We could hardly get anything done, what with all the yelling and screaming an hour or so ago.”

Bitty looks down at the cheese tray. Maybe it’s good they came over before he started tearing up the furniture. The lock clicks open, and he holds the door for Dex and Nursey, who are inexplicably bickering again. He doesn’t know how they do it. Really. He doesn’t. 

Shitty’s office is on the ground floor, in the back corner of the building. When they get there, the door is standing open and it looks like one of the filing cabinets has exploded, spewing its contents all over any available surface. Still, this is pretty much what Shitty’s office looks like on a day to day basis. Bitty peers around the door and walks into the room, setting down the cheese tray on the edge of the desk. Nursey and Dex follow him, the former ducking into the other room while the latter looks through the curtains.

Dex looks over his shoulder. “Window’s broken.” He raises his eyebrows. “That’s a little ominous.”

Bitty looks at the windowsill. “Could be forced entry.” He raises his voice to carry into the other room. “Nursey!”

Nursey reappears in the doorway. “Yeah?”

He thinks for a second. If it’s forced entry, he’s definitely out of his depth here. Jack is out of town on a job, so– “Call Lardo,” he says. “Get her over here.”

Nursey nods. “You think it’s bad?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. But Lardo will.”

By the time Lardo gets there, they’ve discovered a rag in a corner of the room that stinks of chemicals, and some signs of a struggle. There’s a sinking feeling growing in Bitty’s stomach, and it isn’t alleviated by the look of concern on Lardo’s face. She glances around the office, and her brow furrows. 

“So, forced entry is a no go,” she says, peering out the window. “All the glass is outside. So, either it got broken in the fight, or someone went out this way. There’s–” she leans out the window and squints at the pavement below, “blood on the ground, so I’m guessing the second.” Lardo turns around and leans against the wall. “Chloroform on the rag suggests kidnapping, which means two things.”

“What?” Dex asks. 

Lardo glowers. “One: he’s clearly still alive. Two: I’m going to have to kill somebody.”

Bitty isn’t sure if she’s joking about that second part, which is a little concerning. He wouldn’t have thought Lardo the type, but she’s surprised him before. “So, what do we do?”

“Call Jack,” Lardo says. “This is not my wheelhouse, and he’s going to be back tonight anyway.” 

Bitty shakes his head. “He needs to hear this in person.”

Lardo nods. “Okay.” She cracks her knuckles, and the look of grim determination on her face is truly terrifying. “We’re gonna get those fuckers.”

When they get back to the Warenhaus, it’s like walking from a funeral into a wedding. There’s food all over the kitchen table, and Ransom, Holster, and Tango have somehow conned Jack into their abandoned Dungeons and Dragons party. Surprisingly, he looks really enthusiastic about it. Chowder is leaning against the back of Ransom’s chair, peering at the game with his chin on top of Ransom’s head.

Bitty really doesn’t want to break the atmosphere, especially since this might be the first time he’s seen Jack without the mantle of responsibility. He looks five years younger than he usually does, and it occurs to Bitty that this is what he’s supposed to look like.

Jack looks up from the table, and there’s an easy grin on his face that makes Bitty’s heart twist, and he can see the exact moment Jack notices their grim expressions, because the smile falls away. He stands, and he’s suddenly Jack Zimmermann, the infamous crime lord, the kind of man who strikes fear into people’s hearts. The carefree young man at the kitchen table is gone.

“Hey guys,” Chowder straightens up. He’s smiling, but then he glances at Jack. Confusion crosses his face. “What’s up?”

Lardo speaks. “Shitty’s gone.”

“What the fuck,” Ransom’s voice is low and deadly.

“What does that even mean?” They all turn to look at Tango, who raises his eyebrows. “What? Don’t look at me like that. It’s a relevant question.”

“Somebody broke into Shitty’s office and kidnapped him.” Nursey crosses his arms. 

The room is silent for a split second, until Tango’s glass slips from his hand. It shatters on the wooden floor, and the room explodes into sound. Ransom and Holster are immediately planning and gesturing wildly, and Tango is suddenly talking too fast and too loud at Lardo and Chowder. In the center of the chaos is Jack, stock still, with a look of quiet desperation in his eyes.

“Guys!” Bitty yells, and there’s silence as they all turn to look at him. 

Lardo exhales. “There’s nothing we can do tonight, so we might as well go to sleep.” 

“What? No way,” Dex says. “We have to find him.”

She turns to face him. “With what? We have no information. Whoever did this had a reason, and they took him alive. They’ll be in touch sooner or later. Until then, there’s no point in sitting around waiting.” Lardo turns back to the rest of the room. “Get some sleep, all of you.”

After a second, Nursey unfolds his arms and pushes Dex toward the hallway. Chowder follows them, and Ransom and Holster start packing up their game. Tango’s clearly starting to get a little twitchy, and Bitty is suddenly filled with the irrational fear that something’s about to break. They just fixed the microwave. Luckily, Ransom takes him by the shoulder and leads him out. Lardo disappears down the stairs, and soon it’s just Bitty and Jack in the kitchen.

Jack sits down heavily, like he physically can’t support his own weight anymore. His breathing is ragged as he holds his head in his hands, his gaze fixed on the tabletop. Bitty wants nothing more than to crush him in a hug.

Instead, he puts a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Get some sleep,” he says. Bitty turns and heads for the hallway. Jack probably wants to be alone right now. He doesn’t want Bitty intruding.

He’s halfway to the door when he hears the sound of the chair scraping against the floor. “Wait,” Jack says. When Bitty turns, Jack’s halfway out of his chair, one hand outstretched. He clearly wants to say something, but can’t find the words. His breath hitches, and his hand drops.

Bitty doesn’t know what either of them want. He doesn’t know what Jack wants him to be, and he doesn’t know if he can be anything other than what he is. And echoing in his head is what Parse said: _there you go, he trusts you_. Bitty doesn’t know what he is to Jack, but if Jack trusts him, he has to tell Bitty what he needs. Bitty can’t always be the one to make the first move.

But Jack doesn’t say anything. 

“We’re going to find him.” Bitty offers. He pauses, waiting for something, anything. He sighs. “Good night,” He says, and walks away.

***

It’s two days before the package arrives. They’re two tense days, with everybody in the Warenhaus on edge, and avoiding one another. Jack doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself, and spends most of the time holed up in his room. Bitty bakes nonstop, until Ransom physically bars him from the kitchen unless he’s slept at least five hours.

Everyone’s skirting around Lardo like she’s a live mine. Her entire body radiates tension morning to night, and Bitty’s pretty sure she hasn’t slept. She just paces the Warenhaus like a caged animal, a fierce scowl on her face and growing dark circles beneath her eyes. Tango almost runs into her when he’s getting a midnight snack, and she glares daggers at him. Then the microwave explodes. Again.

That afternoon, Bitty’s trying to nap in the armchair by the front door. Ransom never said he had to sleep for five consecutive hours. Maybe a combination of short naps at uneventful hours will do the trick. Chowder’s at the window, watching for the mail. Lardo was certain that whoever took Shitty would be in contact, but none of them know how it’ll happen.

Chowder shakes Bitty’s shoulder, and he springs awake. “What is it?” Bitty says, suddenly alert.

Chowder jerks his thumb at the window. “Check it out. Someone’s coming this way.”

Bitty stands and looks out. He sees a figure walking down the street toward the Warenhaus, a cardboard coffee cup in one hand. Bitty squints. He’s whistling.

Lord, Bitty hates him already.

“Do you think it’s–” Bitty starts, but Chowder cuts him off with a shrug. As the figure gets closer, Bitty can make it out better. It’s a guy, maybe a few years younger than Bitty, with a neat undercut and a sharp chin. Bitty frowns. He looks oddly familiar. He reaches the door and pulls an envelope from his shirt pocket, then bends to slip it under the door.

Chowder opens the door before he can do it, and the guy straightens. “Uh, hi,” he says. “So, I’m supposed to deliver this?”

“What is it?” Chowder asks. 

The guy shrugs and takes a sip of his coffee. “I dunno, man. I’m just an intern.” He holds out the envelope, and that’s when Lardo appears from out of nowhere, screeching and racing like a wet cat. She pushes past Chowder and Bitty and tackles the intern, whose coffee cup goes flying, coating the grass in a depressing spatter of steamed milk. She’s pummeling him before either of them can do anything about it, and when they try to pull her off, she elbows Chowder in the gut.

Lardo drags the intern inside and slams the front door shut, then tapes him into the armchair with an efficiency that would be impressive if it weren’t so terrifying.Then she’s pulling a knife from Lord-knows-where and she’s got it at his throat.

“Jesus!” the intern yelps. His nose is bleeding and he’s got the makings of a spectacular black eye.

“Who the fuck are you?” Lardo growls. 

Bitty doesn’t even know what to make of this turn of events. How long has Lardo been waiting to do this? Has this been her plan the entire time?

“Do we just–” Chowder looks from Bitty to Lardo, who isn’t paying attention to him. “Do we just let her–” He picks up the envelope off the doorstep and examines it.

“Go get Jack–” Bitty stops. Jack is definitely the most authoritative, but that’s probably not what this situation needs right now. “No. Get Nursey. And give me that.” He snatches the envelope from Chowder and pushes him toward the stairs.

“Who are you?” Lardo says. “I’m not going to ask again.” Bitty believes her. Her knuckles are bone white on the handle of the knife, and her gaze is intense.

The intern takes a deep breath. “Whiskey.”

“What?” The intern and Lardo both look at him. Bitty raises his hands in a pacifying gesture. 

“I’m,” he rolls his eyes. “Whiskey.”

“Okay,” Lardo says slowly. “Who do you work for, Whiskey?” It’s then that Bitty places the nagging feeling of familiarity that’s been bothering him since he saw this guy. Bitty saw Whiskey in Reno. He was playing poker with the Chads.

“Those Chad guys in Reno,” he interjects. “That’s who he works for.”

Whiskey looks up at him, surprise written all over his face. “How do you know that?”

Bitty grimaces. “Runt with a lamp.” 

The look of surprise shifts to recognition, and Whiskey nods. “Yeah, okay. Sure.” He looks back at Lardo. “Look. All I know is that I’m supposed to give you that flash drive and tell you that there aren’t any viruses or things like that on there.” He looks at the envelope in Bitty’s hand. “So, can I leave?”

“What, no,” Lardo says. She looks up at the ceiling. “Have you never been a hostage before?”

“We have a hostage?” Nursey leans through the doorway, looking mildly surprised. “When did that happen?” 

Chowder appears behind him. “That’s what I was trying to tell you about,” he says. He’s clearly out of breath, which leads to the disturbing thought in Bitty’s mind that Nursey’s been evading him by somehow sprinting silently down the staircase.

Thieves. Honestly.

Nursey looks around the room. He takes in the guy tied to a chair, the knife Lardo’s holding at his throat, and the intense ferocity in her eyes. He steps back. “Uh. Guys?” For the first time since Bitty’s met him, his supernatural calm is showing some cracks. 

“ _Yes?_ ” Lardo’s looking a little crazed, and the edge of the knife is wavering too close to Whiskey’s neck. Someone needs to do something about this, and Bitty’s kind of afraid that if he steps in, he’s going to end up sliced to ribbons. Not that Lardo would intentionally stab him, per se, it’s just that the lack of sleep and emotional stress aren’t a very flattering combination on her.

Nursey steps farther into the room and puts a hand on her shoulder. “Lardo. Put that down. You’re scaring the guy.” He pries the knife out of her hand and passes it to Chowder. Then he looks at Whiskey. “You’re scared, right?”

Whiskey nods. “Totally.” He looks over at Bitty. “So, are you guys going to actually open that, or–”

Without pause, Lardo rips the envelope out of Bitty’s hand and tears it open. Inside is a metallic flash drive. She turns it over in her hands a few times, then hands it to Nursey. “Go on. Do your hacker thing or whatever.” He starts to walk away, but she snaps, “Hurry up,” and Nursey breaks into a terrifyingly silent sprint.

“I’m just going to get Jack,” Chowder says, and edges out the door. Lardo sits down in another chair, the one facing Whiskey, and stares him down. Whiskey mostly just sits there looking unfazed.

Nursey reappears with a laptop balanced in one hand and tugging Dex along behind him with the other. A moment later, Chowder and Jack enter, looking serious. Nursey sits down on the couch and starts tapping away on the keyboard, then plugs in the flash drive. He pokes at the mouse pad a few times and fiddles with some controls on the screen. Then he turns the laptop toward the rest of the group.

The video playing on the screen is grainy. It shows a small room with bare walls, dimly lit. In the center is a wooden chair with a figure tied to it, head bowed. 

Something cold and heavy settles in the pit of Bitty’s stomach.

Someone else enters the frame. His face is shadowed, but then he steps into the light, and he’s…profoundly ordinary-looking. There’s nothing about his face that should be giving Bitty this feeling of impending doom. But then he sees the man’s eyes, and they’re cold and harsh and unyielding.

“Hello, Jack,” the man says. “I have some unfinished business with you.”

“What the f–” Dex starts, but someone elbows him in the side. Everyone turns and looks at Jack like they’re expecting him to know, but he’s staring intently at the screen.

“I had a business partner,” the man in the video continues. “Jimmy Buckingham. Last month, someone shot him in the head with an M24 Remington sniper rifle. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” That’s when Bitty realizes who he is. _Some guy named Ron. Works out of Reno._ “I’ll be honest. It has made me a bit irritable.” His tone is deadpan and emotionless and unsettling as all hell.

“Oh, sure, I bet you’re usually a ball of fucking sunshine.” The person in the chair raises his head, and there’s a collective intake of breath from the entire team. It’s Shitty, with a massive bruise over one eye, but otherwise looking totally nonchalant.

Ron produces a pistol and turns it in his hands a few times, then swings it. It connects soundly with Shitty’s jaw, and his head snaps to the side. Bitty flinches. “Your friend has a smart mouth,” Ron says. “It’s going to get him in trouble one of these days. To tell the truth,” He continues, “doling out this kind of discipline is making me feel a little better.”

“Kinky.” Shitty laughs at his own joke, but the laugh quickly devolves into a rasping cough. He stops, breathing hard, and Bitty can tell that he’s masking serious pain. His ribs look _wrong_ , and as he turns to spit out the blood he’s coughed up, Bitty can see the way he winces with every movement.

The gun comes down again, and a second later, the door slams shut behind Bitty. There’s the sound of breaking glass, and loud cursing. Evidently, Lardo has seen enough. 

On-screen, Ron steps forward so that he’s filling the entire frame. “I like to think I’m a fairly temperate man. But, you know, even I lose patience. So if you don’t want me to continue to vent my displeasure to your friend here, you’ll come to the southwest corner of Vassar and Elmont Street in two days time.” Ron pauses. Smiles. “And you’ll come alone.”

The screen goes black.

There’s a long silence in which everyone is pointedly not looking at Jack, except for Bitty. All he can see is the way Jack’s cement wall of composure collapses, sheer vulnerability flickering across his face before he’s suddenly out the door.

“So, um,” Whiskey says, and everyone looks at him like they’ve forgotten he was there. Which, you know, is pretty plausible. “Are you guys going to, like, untie me?” Then, inexplicably, the team is looking at Bitty for answers. Because apparently, in the absence of Jack and Lardo, Bitty is the accepted authority figure. What.

Bitty gestures vaguely at nothing in particular. “Do what you want.” Then he heads for the door as well, stopping just short of the shards of a vase that used to sit on the end table in the hall. Lardo. 

He never liked that vase anyway.

Jack isn’t in his room, or the gym, or the kitchen, or any of the second floor, so Bitty decides to try the basement. There’s nothing down there, except for the water heater and a freezer no one uses, so Bitty has no idea why Jack would even go down there, but it’s this or start searching the streets, so he heads down the narrow, creaky staircase and into the darkness.

When his eyes adjust to the gloom provided by the single bare lightbulb, Bitty can just make out the outline of someone sitting on the freezer, with their back to him. Jack. His head is down, resting on his hands.

“Jack?” He braces himself for a rebuke, so he doesn’t expect it when Jack turns and looks at him with dark, sad, vulnerable eyes. A long silence stretches out between them. Bitty doesn’t say anything. He can’t always be the one to reach out. He’s worth more than that. But he can see Jack’s hands still hovering there, as if expecting his head to fall back into them any moment. Jack clearly needs something, and doesn’t know how to ask for it.

Bitty straightens up. “What do you need, honey?”

The tension drains from Jack’s shoulders. “Just–” His voice is raw. He shifts over to make room on the freezer. “Don’t leave me alone.” 

Hesitantly, Bitty makes his way to the freezer and sits next to him, leaning into Jack’s shoulder. He bites his lip. Maybe he’s overstepping, but he really doesn’t care. He hugs Jack as well as he can from the side. Jack takes a stuttering breath and leans in, letting Bitty take some of his weight. He’s physically shaking and gasping in shallow breaths.

Bitty reaches over and cards his fingers through Jack’s hair. “Talk to me, Jack.”

“I should have been able to stop this.” It’s like the words are being dragged from him, like it’s something that’s physically painful to admit. “Shitty’s my best friend, and I let him get kidnapped and tortured by some fucking psychopath–” A hiccuping sob escapes him. 

Bitty is in no way equipped to deal with this. He’s a burglar, okay; he crawls through vents and steals things. But as far as he can see, this situation isn’t Jack’s fault. 

Well. Maybe a little. But certainly not as much as Jack seems to want it to be. Bitty grabs his shoulders and makes Jack look him in the face. “Hey. No. This isn’t your fault, okay?” 

“But–”

“No. You don’t get to do that to yourself. I don’t care whose fault it is. What’s important is that we get Shitty back.” He takes a deep breath. “We’ve got two days. What are we going to do?”

***

The van screeches to a halt outside the Vassar Street address, and at least three people sigh with relief. They’re all crammed in back, squished to various extents against Dex’s (very expensive) computer stuff. In the front seat, Nursey sighs contentedly and puts the van in park. “That was a nice drive.”

From somewhere in the back, Dex says “I am never letting you drive again.” 

Bitty checks his watch. 8:55. “Okay. Someone let Jack out.” The back door of the van opens and somehow Jack climbs out of the mass of limbs. He takes a second to straighten his clothes, then nods. 

“Catch you later,” He says, and shuts the door. 

***

_“I don’t like the idea of you going in by yourself,” Lardo says. “And you want to go in without an earpiece? What if it’s a trap?”_

_Jack raises his eyebrows. “Oh, it’s definitely a trap.”_

_“And you’re just going to walk into it.”_

_“Yeah.”_

***

Ransom runs his finger down the blank piece of paper on his clipboard and purses his lips. “Yeah, got everything here. Rifles, ammo; all the stuff you ordered.”

The woman nods. On the screen, Bitty can see it’s Melinda. “Cool. Bring the crates into the garage.” 

Next to him, Dex is tapping away on his phone, humming under his breath. He hits the call button, and Melinda’s phone rings. She holds up a finger and reaches for her phone. 

“Sorry, I have to take this.”

Inside the van, Dex raises his phone to his ear and raises his eyebrows. “Hello. I’m calling on behalf of the Wisconsin Energy Coalition.” 

Nursey snickers. “What the hell, Poindexter,” he says, sounding positively gleeful.

Dex glances at him, raises a finger to his lips, and deadpans, “We would like to thank you for your generous donation, and encourage you to renew your subscription. As you are no doubt aware, our planet is at a dangerous tipping point. With your help, we can ensure the future of our planet for generations to come. Would you like–” He lowers the phone. “She hung up.”

“Well, yeah. We’re in Massachusetts.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

***

_“So, we go in as arms dealers.” Lardo jots something down on her notepad. “And we go get Shitty?”_

_Jack shakes his head. “No, he’s going to see through that, too. Your job is to cause as much chaos as humanly possible.”_

_“Why?”_

_He smiles. “Trust me.”_

_***_

On Nursey’s laptop screen, Bitty watches as the team destroys everything in their path. 

“Where did Lardo get a baseball bat?” Nursey asks. “You know what, I don’t even want to know.” He selects another feed, and now they’re looking at Jack and Ron in a room with high ceilings and lots of windows. Bitty leans forward.

“Can you turn the volume up?”

Nursey just looks at him. “It isn’t that hard.” But he turns it up anyway.

“Well, well, well,” Ron says. “How very nice of you to drop in, Mr. Zimmermann.” He’s facing the windows, hands clasped behind his back like some kind of James Bond villain. He turns and picks up a glass of port. “It’s good to finally meet you.”

“I wish I could say the same,” Jack says.

The smile on Ron’s face tightens into something more like a grimace. “Careful. I still have your friend, Mr. Knight. A charming young man. I’ve enjoyed our time together.”

“Is this going somewhere? I have things to do.” Jack makes a moue of annoyance. “People to see. You know how it is.”

“Well, if this is such an inconvenience for you...” Ron pauses, leaving the implication hanging in the air. However Jack might posture, they both know who has the power here. Ron has Shitty, and he’s not the kind of man to make unnecessary threats.

Ron smiles and sets down his drink. He knows he’s scored a hit. “Nothing to say for yourself? Look at you. You’re nothing but a two-bit con from the backside of nowhere.”

“Thanks.” Jack inspects his nails. “Sweet of you to say.”

“I’m insulting you, at least pay attention,” Ron snaps. His elbow goes back, and then his hand is flying toward Jack’s face. Without looking up from his nails, Jack catches Ron’s wrist less than an inch from his cheek. Bitty didn’t even see him move.

“Was he gonna _slap_ Jack?” Nursey asks, outraged. He’s holding a bag of popcorn.

In the other chair, Dex leans over and snags a handful. “Who _does_ that?”

Bitty looks back at the screen, where Jack is still holding onto Ron’s wrist. 

“Until you have something to say that’s more interesting than the dirt under my fingernails, I will continue to treat you like the insignificant child that you are.” Jack looks him in the eyes, expression flat. “Did it ever occur to you that if it wasn’t me who got to Jimmy, it would have been someone else? But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? You crawled out of a boardroom in a suit a size too big and thought you knew what you were getting into. Sure, I killed your partner. It was a job. You sent assassins after me; do you see me trying to kill them? No. But you come after me with some kind of convoluted temper tantrum and expect me to give you the time of day, and I have decided that it’s not worth my attention. Kill me or don’t, but don’t waste my time.” 

***

_Lardo sighs. “You’re telling me that your plan is just to walk in there and be really mean to the guy who’s got Shitty locked up somewhere. What the fuck. No.”_

_“I don’t actually need your permission, Lardo.”_

_Bitty has doubts about this. He has so many doubts. “Jack.” He hesitates, trying to think of the most delicate way to say this. “I mean, you’re great at what you do, but you’re a terrible actor.”_

_Jack leans back in his chair. “Bits. Who says I’ll be acting?"_

_***_

It’s going pretty well until the Chads show up, bless their hearts. Lardo and the others are destroying things willy-nilly, pieces of plastic and metal flying. Then, at the end of the hallway, a door opens and the Chads step through.

“What the fuck,” says Chad R. “Who are these jokers?”

Everyone freezes. Tango, surprisingly, is the first to speak. “You… You’re not mad that we’re breaking your stuff?”

Chad R. shrugs. “It’s not our stuff.”

Tango pauses. “Then why are you here?”

“Well, you see–” Chad S. starts to say, but he’s cut short by Lardo opening one of the crates at her feet and pulling out a rather surprised-looking Whiskey. She wraps an arm around his neck, straining to reach because of the height difference, and holds a knife to his throat.

“Lardo,” Bitty says, well aware that she can’t hear him. “No.”

***

_Jack’s phone rings, and he glances down at the screen. “I have to take this,” he announces, then heads for the door. “What?” he says into the phone, then pauses. “Look, I don’t know how you got lost,” he snaps. “It’s not that fucking hard, crisse.”_

_Lardo waits until he’s out of the room, then turns to Bitty. “Look,” she says. “Jack’s plan is terrible. Right?”_

_Bitty doesn’t say anything, which she must take as agreement, because she keeps going. “I have a backup plan. I’m going to grab Whiskey and use him to try and bargain for Shitty.” She raises her eyebrows. “Yes?”_

_“No,” Bitty says. “Definitely no.”_

***

But, you know, who actually listens to what Bitty has to say? No one, right? It’s not like he ever has the right idea, you know? That would just be implausible. He puts his head in his hands and sighs deeply. This is going to go so badly.

On the screen, the reaction is as mixed as it is palpable. The rest of the team takes a step back from Lardo, and the Chads seem to be at a complete loss. 

Lardo presses the knife tight to Whiskey’s throat and pushes him forward a step. He holds his hands up in surrender. “Oh no,” he says, voice flat. “Whatever will I do.”

“What–” Chad S. looks down and sighs. “No.”

The look in Lardo’s eyes is bordering on manic. “We’ve got your guy here.”

“Yes,” Chad S. says. “We can see that.”

She lowers the knife for a second. “Do you– do you not want him back?”

He raises his hands. “Um, no? That’s why we sent him to your lair or whatever.”

Lardo puts the knife down. “Oh.”

Whiskey takes a step away. “Could have told you that.”

For a long moment, they’re all just standing there awkwardly, staring at each other. Eventually, Chad R. raises one hand. “So do we just– do we just fight now?”

***

_Lardo sighs. “Wait. So, if you’re distracting Ron, and we’re causing mass chaos, and these geeks are in the van, who’s actually getting Shitty?”_

_Jack opens his mouth to speak, but at that very moment, the front door crashes open and someone storms down the hall to the kitchen._

_“You put me in fucking economy, you asshole.”_

_Jack smiles._

_***_

Bitty’s standing outside the van with Ransom and Holster when the rest of them get back. They reached the van before the others, having sprinted out of the garage like a pair of bats out of hell, then slowed to a leisurely stroll when they saw Bitty. It’s whatever. He’s not asking questions.

Then Lardo and Chowder appear, half-dragging, half-carrying Tango between them. He’s inexplicably out cold.

“What did you do?” Bitty sighs.

Lardo’s eyes widen. “I didn’t touch him! Why does everyone assume that I did something?”

“How’d it go?” Holster says. “Looked pretty slick.” 

Bitty opens the back of the van. “Get in, you vagrants,” he says. Nursey is sitting in the passenger seat, his feet on the dashboard. From the driver’s seat, Dex shoves his feet off.

“Hey, guys,” Shitty says, raising his hand in a halfhearted peace sign. He’s holding his side like he’s trying to keep his ribs in place. Lardo gasps, then goes to hug him. “Ow,” he says, and she pulls away.

“Sorry.”

***

Ron wrenches his wrist from Jack’s grip and takes a few deep breaths. “You can say whatever you want to me, Zimmermann, but it doesn’t change one simple fact. I’ve got your lawyer friend, and unless you cooperate with me, there’s nothing you can do for him. And the rest of your team, the ones posing as arms dealers? Did you really think they’d be able to get past my security? How infantile.”

Jack picks up Ron’s glass and laughs into it, then takes a sip, which only seems to enrage Ron more.

“What,” he says, coolly, “if I may ask, is so amusing?”

“Nothing,” Jack says, waving a hand airily. “I just think it’s ironic.”

Ron sighs. “What’s ironic?”

“It’s just–” he laughs a little, “you spent how long trying to come up with the best way to get to me, and this is what you come up with? I honestly don’t know what you thought was going to happen. That I was going to just give up? Bow down to your ‘superior skill’ or something?” Jack sets down the glass. “All you did was piss me off. And this whole plan, trying to get me to give myself up, what was that about? Let me tell you something about getting people to do what you want,” he says, suddenly serious. “It requires leverage. In order to get back at me, you used my friend. And that was, you know, not a terrible idea. But let me tell you something else. He hasn’t been in the building for a good twenty minutes. While my team was up here keeping you and your people busy, you let him slip out from under your noses.” He looks upward, considering. “Which leaves you with… let’s see… absolutely nothing.” Jack grins. “I won. I beat you. And at no point did you see anything other than exactly what I wanted you to see.”

The door to the room opens, and Parse is standing in the doorway. “Are you coming, asshole?” He tilts his head to one side. “On a strict schedule, here.”

“Oh, yeah, and that’s another thing,” Jack says. “Did you know that kidnapping is a federal crime? The police are on their way, and I don’t envy the headache you’re going to have dealing with that.”

Then Ron suddenly has a pistol pointed at Jack, and he’s gone very pale. “You can’t do this,” he says, his hand trembling so much that the barrel of the pistol is shaking. 

Jack smiles and shakes his head. “I already did.” Behind him, Parse’s head is thrown back as he cackles hysterically.

“The thing about guns,” Jack says, “is that they are terrible short range weapons. Sure,” he continues, stepping away from the door, “you get improved accuracy, but–” Parse moves like a snake, grabbing Ron’s wrist and twisting it, then snagging the gun. “–there’s just so much room for outside interference.”

Parse points the gun at Ron’s forehead. “Want me to–”

“No,” Jack says, holding up a hand. He pauses, considering. “Get him in the kneecap. That’ll hurt more.”

Parse’s answering laugh mingles with the report of the pistol and Ron’s screams of pain.

**Part Five: The One With Yelling**

“So, why are you missing a fingernail?” Ransom says, passing Shitty a mug of cocoa. “Dare I ask?” They’re back in the kitchen, gathered around the table. Jack hasn’t gotten back yet, but they’re all sitting around and celebrating. Lardo looks more relaxed than she has in several days, and she’s as close to Shitty as she can physically get without hurting his ribs. 

“Oh, shit,” Holster says. “That’s nasty, man.”

“They–” Shitty’s interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Jack enters, with Parse close behind him. He stops short when he sees Shitty, and there’s warring relief and guilt on his face. Bitty frowns. 

Also, three different people flip Parse off. He pulls a face and returns the gesture. “Right, I’m outta here,” he says, and heads for the door.

“So, fingernail?” Ransom prompts.

Shitty looks down at his hand and winces. “Yeah. Um. It got ripped off with a pair of pliers.” He laughs a little, uncomfortably. “Fun times.”

“Why would someone do that?” Tango whispers to Whiskey. 

Whiskey sighs. “Information?” Then Lardo elbows him in the side, and he scowls. “I didn’t– you know what, nevermind.”

Jack narrows his eyes. “Okay, everyone out. Debrief.” After a moment’s pause, the team starts to disperse in small groups. Bitty is heading off toward the living room with Chowder when Jack catches him by the arm and pulls him to a stop. Chowder looks back, questioning, but Bitty waves him on.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

Jack looms over him, looking concerned. “Will you sit in on the debrief?” He glances around. “I’m a little worried, and I want to create a supportive environment.” The words sound almost rehearsed, like Jack spends a significant amount of time thinking of the most efficient way to discuss team issues. Or he’s been googling “ways to encourage a teammate”. One of the two.

Bitty’s a little taken aback. Flattered, certainly, but taken aback. Since when does Jack invite him into private debriefings? For that matter, since when does Jack trust Bitty with his worries at all? Parse’s voice echoes in his head again. _He trusts you._

Jack’s still looking at him. “Sure,” Bitty says, and sits down at the kitchen table, across from Shitty. Lardo sits down with them, arms folded over her chest and looking mutinous. Bitty edges a few inches toward Jack. If there’s one thing he doesn’t want, it’s to be anywhere nearby when Lardo loses control.

Because she will lose control. Some things are just inevitable. The sun rises and sets, time passes, and Lardo expresses her compassion and empathy as misplaced rage.

Jack takes one look at Lardo and sighs. “This is a private debriefing,” he starts. Bitty gives him credit for trying at all. But Lardo just sinks lower in her chair and glares up at Jack. Every line of her body screams barely-repressed anger.

Jack turns his attention to Shitty, and attempts a reassuring smile. It comes off more like the final expression on the face of a man being led in front of a firing squad. “It’s good to have you back,” he says.

Shitty nods. “Likewise.” There’s an edge of discomfort in his voice, and he shifts in his seat. “What’s this about?”

At the same time, Jack says, “There’s no easy way to ask this.” He pauses and takes a deep breath. “How much did you give them?”

“What?” Lardo leans forward in her seat, one hand outstretched in front of Shitty, eyes blazing. “What the fuck, Jack?”

Bitty winces. There it is. He leans back in his chair and folds his arms over his chest.

“Look,” Jack says. “For all we know–”

“He has broken ribs!”

“And we have no idea how he got them; does that not concern you?”

Lardo’s hands clench. “So why is this suddenly an interrogation?”

“I don’t want to ask, but I have to know–” 

“You can’t even wait five minutes before making baseless accusations–”

“They’re not baseless!” Jack snaps, stunning her into silence. “That’s the thing. Shitty clearly took a beating, which is commendable. But, brave as he might be, he’s just a lawyer. No offense,” he says, looking at Shitty.

Shitty shrugs, wincing slightly. “None taken.”

Jack nods. “Thanks. My point,” he tells Lardo, “is that a lawyer has no reason to be able to withstand torture.” He pauses and leans forward. “You think I want to have to ask? Do you think I enjoy this? The only reason I ask at all is because it affects the safety of the team. They–” he hesitates, “they stopped after one fingernail, so he clearly gave them something.”

Lardo gives a jerky nod.

Jack turns back to Shitty. “So. What do they know?”

He takes a deep breath and winces. “I told them the layout of the building.” His voice cracks. “Sorry about that.”

Lardo wraps an arm around his shoulders and squeezes. “You did just fine,” she says, voice low. “It isn’t your fault.”

Jack crosses his arms, looking puzzled. “What would they want with the layout of the ‘haus?”

Shitty shakes his head. “I don’t know, man. They wanted to know where all the rooms are positioned. Even the bedrooms.” He shifts in his seat. “They really want you dead. This Ron guy is pissed, and I get the impression that he isn’t going to stop until he gets what he wants.” He turns to Bitty. “And those Chad guys are holding a major grudge against you for whatever you did in Reno. And they don’t mess around.”

Bitty shivers a little at the thought of the guy he _stabbed_ finding out where he sleeps. 

“Is that all you told them?” Jack asks. “I understand if you gave them more, but I need to know what they know.”

Shitty straightens up and looks Jack directly in the eye. “That’s all they got out of me.”

“Good man.” Lardo stands and helps him to his feet. “Let’s go ice those ribs, yeah?”

“Hang on–” Jack starts.

"We're done here." She doesn't look back.

The door shuts behind her, and Jack leans back and scrubs at his eyes with the back of his hand. “That went well.” 

“Could have been worse,” Bitty tries.

“Oh, yeah, sure, she could have literally killed me instead of doing it verbally.” He groans. 

Bitty just stares at him. “Are you– are you okay?” Jack doesn’t say anything. “Because–” Bitty hesitates, then soldiers on. “It’s okay if you’re not.”

Jack lowers his arm and sits up slowly, and then he’s looking at Bitty like he’s seeing him for the first time. His eyes are wide and focused on Bitty’s face. “Oh,” he says, and he doesn’t sound like himself at all. Then he stands jerkily and heads for the door. “I need to go,” is all Bitty hears, and then the door slams shut.

Bitty just stares at the closed door for a long moment. _What in the sweet sam hill just happened?_

***

The next morning, no one knocks on his door at five am. Bitty wakes up anyway. He presses his face back into his pillow and hopes against hope that he’ll be able to go back to sleep, but it’s too late now. Somehow, waking up at this sinful hour has become the new normal. 

Against his better judgement, he goes to the gym. Jack is there, leaning against the wall. He’s standing in total darkness. It’s as if he did everything he could to fool Bitty into thinking he wasn’t there, barring not going to the gym at all.

Bitty frowns and turns the lights on. “What are you doing?”

Jack says nothing, just settles into a fighting stance.

Okay. This is weird. Bitty looks around. “What’s going on?”

“Defend yourself,” Jack snaps. Bitty barely has time to block the first punch. He ducks under the next one and retreats into the gym. Jack follows, and while Bitty’s blocking he has a little time to figure out what _fresh hell_ this is.

Something’s obviously wrong. Jack’s expression is stony, and he’s putting a lot more force into his punches than usual. But he’s getting sloppy. It’s unlike him. And he can’t have too much energy left. On the next hit, Jack overextends himself and his guard hand drops. _There_ , Bitty thinks. He jabs at Jack’s face, and to his surprise, it connects. 

Jack stumbles back, and Bitty ducks around him and punches him in the kidney. Jack falls forward, onto one knee, and before Bitty can assess what he’s doing, he has Jack in a chokehold.

They’re frozen for a good five seconds, bodies pressed together, and the only coherent thought Bitty can form is _What?_

Jack recovers first. He breaks Bitty’s grip and then Bitty’s lying flat on his back, again, watching Jack’s retreating form as he slams the door shut behind him.

_What?_

***

For the next couple of mornings, pretty much the same thing happens. Bitty wakes up at 5am against his will, goes to the gym, and fights Jack. Every time they finish their first match, Jack walks out. He doesn’t say a word. It’s weird. Unsettling. 

Bitty doesn’t see him outside of the gym for four days. 

“What’s going on with Jack?” he says, closing the oven door and turning the timer off. He’d been in his room when he’d heard it, and come to check on his quiche.

Nursey looks at him, inquiring. “What?”

Bitty glances around. “You know, he’s being all weird?”

“Uh. No?” He leans against the counter. “He was just in here. Seemed fine to me.”

Okay. So Jack is avoiding him.

Chowder pokes his head through the door and studies them. “Did you guys do something to Jack?”

Nursey tilts his head to one side. “Why?”

“He just blew through here, looking like he was on his way to kill someone.” Chowder shivers. “Scary.”

So. Jack is definitely avoiding him. Okay. He’s not going to pretend he’s not a little hurt. Bitty legitimately thought they were, if not friends, then close enough not to pull this kind of crap. And the worst of it is that he has no idea what he’s done wrong. 

***

They fight. Bitty loses.

This time, he’s on his feet before Jack gets to the door. He settles into a fighting stance, dropping his weight low. “Again,” he says. 

Jack stops in the doorway. He turns. 

“Defend yourself,” Bitty says, and elbows him in the gut. By the time Jack reacts, Bitty’s several feet away, bouncing on the balls of his feet, left hand up to guard his face.

Jack takes a step closer. “I’m not going to play this game.”

Bitty throws a punch, landing a solid hit to Jack’s face. His head snaps back. “We’re not playing, we’re fighting.” He tries again, but this time Jack dodges. “Come on. Defend yourself.”

“What are you doing?” Jack asks. He doesn’t sound annoyed, just exhausted. Somehow that’s worse.

“Why are you avoiding me?” Bitty feints inward, then darts back. 

“I’m not–” he leans back to avoid another hit, then stumbles. “I’m not avoiding you.” It doesn’t even sound like he believes himself. 

Bitty sees red. It’s one thing to avoid him, but it’s another thing entirely to lie to his face about it. “You don’t get to do this,” he spits. “You don't get to lie and tell me everything is fine when you can't even be in the same room as me. I deserve better than that.” He takes Jack down neatly, one knee planted on his chest, his forearm pressed up against Jack’s throat. He's shaking with anger and something else he can't quite name. Jack’s eyes are wide with shock. Bitty continues. “I’m your friend, Jack. Act like it.” Then he stands and walks out, letting the door slam shut behind him.

***

Bitty spends the morning holed up in Dex and Nursey’s lab. Call it petty, but he just can’t face Jack right now. Because honestly, he acted like a child. But then, he deserved better than the way Jack was treating him. Who was he, to think he could just ignore a person and not even tell them what they’d done wrong?

Dex crouches down to fiddle with one of the cords under the desk, and jumps when he sees Bitty curled up among the wires. “Jesus,” he says. “How long have you been down there?” He looks back over his shoulder. “Nurse, did you know he was down here?”

The other swivel chair creaks and Nursey crouches next to Dex. “Huh,” he says. “Nope.” He scratches his jaw and shrugs. “What are you doing under there?”

Bitty freezes. “Nothing.”

Nursey nods. “Uh huh. Do we need to yell at Jack?”

That’s when there’s a knock on the ceiling. They all turn to look at the tile, and Bitty can faintly hear the word _crisse_. He winces. Oh no.

Nursey recovers first. He pulls a chair to the center of the room and stands on it, then lifts one of the ceiling tiles up and out of the way. Then there’s a surprised yelp, and Jack is hanging halfway out of the ceiling, his arms pinwheeling madly in an attempt to keep his balance. “ _Viarge_.” he sighs.

Dex eyes him. “What are you doing?”

Jack freezes and manages to look sheepish, as much as one can look sheepish while hanging upside down and red-faced. “Um,” he says. “Have you guys seen Bitty?” Then his gaze travels past Dex and lands on Bitty.

Sassafrass.

“Oh,” Jack says. 

“You were looking for Bitty in the ceiling?” Dex asks.

Nursey narrows his eyes and stares at Jack. When he speaks, his voice is low and sharp. “Did you want something?”

Jack is still looking at Bitty. “Can I talk to you?”

Well, there’s no avoiding this. He’s going to have to get it over with sooner or later. Bitty disentangles himself from the mound of cords under the desk and stands up. He sighs. “Sure, Jack. Sure.” He’s almost to the door when he realizes that, wait, Jack is still hanging upside down out of the ceiling. 

Oh. 

Dex and Nursey exchange a glance and leave the room, leaving Bitty to wonder how exactly he’s meant to get Jack out of the ceiling by himself.

“Oh,” Jack says. “Well, then.” He scoots forward a little bit.

Bitty sighs. “What are you–” He’s interrupted by Jack toppling forward and landing with a thud on his side. “–doing?” he finishes.

“Ow,” Jack groans, his voice muffled by the carpeting. He gets to his feet and brushes spiderwebs and dust from his shoulders. Bitty resists the urge to pick the clumps of lint from his hair. 

Jack holds up a finger and starts digging through his pockets. Bitty sighs. “Are those–”

He produces a crumpled up sheet of paper and starts unfolding it.

“–notes?” Bitty’s not sure he can handle this. 

Then Jack starts reading from the sheet. “I would like to apologize for my behavior.” It’s stilted and horrifying, but somehow kind of endearing. “I shouldn’t have avoided you. It was immature and detrimental to the cohesiveness of the team. I didn’t realize it would hurt your feelings–”

“Bullshit,” Bitty interrupts. “What did you think was going to happen?”

Jack looks up from the paper, the expression on his face as shocked as if Bitty had just declared war. “I– uh, well,”

Bitty snatches the paper from him and scans it. It’s an apology, but even on paper it feels rehearsed and robotic. He crushes it in his hands and throws it over his shoulder. “Can you just talk to me? Like, I don’t know, a normal human adult?” 

Jack closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, then looks back at Bitty. “Look, I’m sorry.” This time he means it. “I was shitty and immature.”

“And?”

“And I won’t do it again?” Jack tries.

Bitty smiles. “There you go.” Jack looks relieved. But then Bitty pulls him into a hug, and he’s insanely stiff. He pats Bitty’s shoulder a few times and laughs uncomfortably.

“I think Lardo was looking for you,” he says.

Bitty tightens his grip. “You’re not getting out of this one, Mr. Zimmermann.”

***

So, reasonably, Bitty assumes that they’re going to go back to normal after this. But they don’t. Oh, no, they don’t.

“Are you _letting me win_?” This is the third match in a row that Bitty’s knocked Jack on his backside, and it’s not normal.

Jack looks shifty. “Uh. No?” He glances at the door. “You’re just. Improving?”

“Is that a question?”

“No?” 

And that’s just the beginning of it. It’s like one of those scary movies where someone gets replaced with an alien that can only offer up an eerie, off-putting bastardization of that person’s original personality. Because Jack isn’t nice. 

Well, he’s not mean, but he’s definitely not this nice. Jack doesn’t bring people coffee. He doesn’t just give people his flannel shirts. And he absolutely does not playfully punch people in the shoulder. 

And he keeps _smiling_. What’s that about?

“Did you do something to Jack?” Tango asks, suddenly standing in front of the door to his room, arms folded over his chest. 

Bitty jumps. _Bells_. “Uh… Why do you ask?”

Tango takes a step closer to Bitty, glancing around as if to check for eavesdroppers. “He’s being really weird. Like, he keeps– I think it’s smiling? Maybe? Did you drug him?”

“That’s a terrible thing to say.”

Tango tilts his head to one side, eyes wide with realization. “That’s not a no.”

Bitty sighs. “No, for the love of God, I didn’t drug anyone. Why would you even assume that?”

“He keeps asking about you. It’s weird, man.”

Then Lardo appears, hurrying down the hallway. She stops next to Tango, glances around, and whispers, “He’s asking about Bitty again. Is he a pod person?” She turns to Bitty. “Is he?”

Bitty holds up his hands. “I don’t know anything, okay?”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Yeah. Okay. Sure.” She turns to Tango. “Shit’s weird, man.”

Thankfully, before anyone can start in on the whole torches and pitchforks act, demanding to know what Bitty’s done to Jack, they all leave on some grift that Bitty wasn’t invited on. Unfortunately, that means it’s just him, Jack, Dex, and Tango left in the Warenhaus.

Oh, no.

So Bitty goes to bed praying that this has all been a strange mass hallucination, and that Jack will be normal in the morning.

***

At five, like clockwork, Jack knocks on his door. Bitty’s already dressed and waiting. He opens the door, and Jack hands him a paper bag. He’s clearly trying to act casual. Bitty narrows his eyes. Jack doesn’t do casual.

He opens the bag. Inside is a blueberry muffin, still warm. “Where did you get this?”

“Dunkin’ Donuts.”

“Dunkin’ Donuts doesn’t open for another hour.”

Jack’s eye twitches.

It’s not even that important, if Bitty’s being completely honest. He doesn’t really care about where Jack really got the muffin or if he was running around Boston in the predawn hours, breaking into Dunkin’ Donuts and stealing muffins. It’s just a symptom of a larger problem, and that’s what Bitty cares about.

Then Jack hands him a coffee, too, and Bitty kind of wants to start banging his head against the doorframe. Or Jack’s. Maybe both. But instead he takes a deep breath and resolves to just ignore it. It can’t get worse if he doesn’t acknowledge aloud that the problem exists.

So they start toward the gym, Bitty eyeing the coffee and Jack chattering away about mundane things. Things he would never actually say in normal conversation. Things like the weather. And maybe if Jack were less weird about it, it would be okay. But he’s so awkward and uncomfortable with the whole situation that it’s just coming off as stilted and off-putting.

Bitty glances around. No one else is in the hall, but that doesn’t mean anything. He’s living in a den of thieves and criminals. Anyone could be listening. Lardo probably already is. She’s not even in the building, but Bitty wouldn’t put it past her. He looks up at the ceiling and narrows his eyes.

“Bitty?” Jack’s voice startles him out of his thoughts.

He looks back at Jack. “What were you saying?”

“Ellen.” Jack pauses. “I just think that she does a great job of making LGBT issues more accessible for people.”

 _What is going on with him?_ Jack doesn’t watch Ellen. The only thing he’s ever seen Jack watching are these horrifying old documentaries about World War II on his laptop. Bitty’s not even sure he knows how the TV works.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“I’m… walking?” Jack just looks confused.

Bitty looks around again. He doesn’t want to have this conversation in the hallway. He doesn’t want to have to talk about this at all, but it seems like the only thing he can control is the location. Up ahead, there’s a door leading to a storage room. It’s not the most convenient, but it’ll have to do.

He pulls Jack inside and closes the door behind them, then flicks on the light switch. 

“What exactly do you think you’re doing, Jack?” Bitty can’t help the bite at the edge of his words, but it’s uncivilized. He doesn’t want to have to be uncivilized.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about–”

“You know perfectly well what I mean!” Bitty takes a step closer. “Avoiding me, and then acting all buddy-buddy. Bringing me muffins?” He waves the bag. “Small talk! You don’t do small talk, Jack. The team thinks I killed you and replaced you with a pod person. Tango actually accused me of drugging you! What the hell is going on?”

Jack stiffens. “Nothing?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” Bitty sets the bag and the cup down on one of the shelves. “Jesus, Jack. You’re about as subtle as a wall of bricks to the face.”

Jack looks down at his wringing hands. “I’m just– just trying to be nice–”

“Nice!” Bitty scoffs. “You passed _nice_ miles back, honey. _This_ is… I don’t even know what this is.” He pauses, waiting for Jack to say something. He seems to do that a lot, he realizes. When Jack just stands there looking ashamed, Bitty continues, possibly sounding a little more bitter than he should. “Nothing to say for yourself? Of course. Why did I expect any different? Honestly, Jack, would it kill you to talk to me? You never told me what it was that made you freak out and avoid me for days, and now after I thought I’d explained–” 

He stops, considering for a moment what he said to Jack that day. “Is this what you thought I meant when I told you to treat me like a friend? I mean, you’ve had friends, right? This isn’t how you treat a friend. It’s just not. Can you see that?” Bitty raises his eyebrows and waits for Jack to say something, anything, but as usual, there’s no response.

He sighs and turns to the door. “I can’t do this with you.” But when he turns the handle, it won’t budge. Perfect. “We’re locked in. Do you have your phone?”

Jack pulls it from his pocket and holds it up. “I’ll call Dex.” He dials and holds the phone to his ear, then turns away from Bitty. “Yeah. Dex. Sorry, did I wake you? We’re locked in that storage room by the gym. Can you go get the key and get us out?” There’s a pause. “What?” Jack turns and reaches past Bitty to try the door handle again. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.” Then Dex says something, and Jack freezes. “Okay. You’re in the tech lab, yes? I need you to figure out what the hell is going on.”

“What’s happening?” Bitty asks.

Jack holds the phone away from his ear. “Dex is locked in too. Something’s wrong.” He goes back to his phone and Bitty starts scanning the walls of the storage room, looking for any way to get out. But as far as he can see, the walls are solid, and even if there were a vent or something like that, the shelves are so large there’d be no way to get to it. Then he sees it.

“Jack.”

A blinking light on the highest shelf, in the back corner.

“ _Jack._ ”

Jack holds up his hand. “Look, Dex–”

Bitty grabs his shoulder. “No. Jack. _Look_.” He points at the shelf.

He pauses. “Dex, hang on a second.” Then he hands the phone to Bitty and approaches the shelf. He reaches back through the boxes and loose wires and removes something that looks like a black box, open, with a lot of wires looped inside and a timer flashing down the seconds.

Bitty’s blood runs cold. He raises the phone to his ear. “We’ve got a bomb.”

“Fuck!” says Dex. 

Carefully, Jack sets the bomb down on the floor and holds out his hand. Bitty hands him the phone and backs toward the door. He knows it won’t make any difference, but in some instinctual way, he feels much better pressed against a solid structure as far from that box as possible.

“Yeah. Yep. _Yes,_ William, a bomb.” Jack peers down at the display. “Uh, like a minute and a half.” He sighs. “Fine. 1:27. 1:26. 1:25. _Better?_ ” He’s feigning nonchalance, but Bitty can feel the stress rolling off him in waves. “Dex– stop talking so fast, I can’t understand you. Calm down.” He pauses. “Oh. Hi Tango. How’s it going over there? Yeah. A bomb. I know.” He looks down again. “One minute,” He says, voice tight. “Put Dex on.”

Bitty tries the door again. Still locked. He’s never been claustrophobic, of course, but now he feels so trapped and helpless he could scream. 

“Uh, I don’t know, like a bomb?” Jack sighs. “There are a lot of wires and things. And a little antenna.”

45 seconds. Bitty thinks he might be hyperventilating, but he’s not sure.

“And there’s circuit boards? No, that’s not a question. There are circuit boards.” Jack looks down at the timer again. “Thirty seconds. Look. Forget trying to disarm the bomb. You two can get out through the fire escape, right? Save yourselves.” He hangs up and tosses the phone aside.

Bitty stares at him. They’re going to die. And God, he’s never going to grow old or settle down and have kids. He’s never going to see his parents again. He’s never going to see anyone again.

20 seconds.

And he’s never going to get to tell Jack how he really feels, is he?

18.

Across from him, Jack stares down at the bomb, looking more lost and confused than Bitty’s ever seen him.

“Jack,” Bitty says, voice coming out strangled through suppressed tears. “I’m sorry.”

10.

Jack looks up at him. He takes a deep breath, and seems to come to a decision. Then he closes the distance between them in two large steps and grabs Bitty by the shoulders, searching his face. Suddenly one of Jack’s hands is on Bitty’s back and the other is sliding up his neck and they’re so close and then he’s kissing Bitty.

Bitty’s knee-jerk reaction is panic, but he only has five seconds to live, so he kisses back because he’s never going to have this opportunity again and what’s he got to lose, really?

There’s a soft buzzing sound from somewhere, but Bitty has never cared less about a noise in his life. And as far as he can tell, Jack shares his sentiment.

The buzzing continues.

Then Jack pulls away. Bitty opens his eyes. He’s not quite sure when he closed them. And it’s dark in the storage room. When did that happen?

“That’s… uh. That’s my phone.” Jack says. “I should… uh, probably get that.” He takes a step away and immediately runs into something. “Ow.” Then there’s light from his phone screen as he raises it to his face. “Dex? Yeah. We’re not dead. Not really sure why. The power’s out.” He pauses and listens for a moment. “Oh. Hey. That was smart. Good job. Oh, really, Tango? Give him a high five.”

Bitty’s floating somewhere between shock and bewilderment when it finally occurs to him that Jack’s speaking. He mutters, “Okay,” before realizing that it’s far too late to give Jack permission to answer his phone. He shakes the fog out of his head.

The lights come back on, and Jack winces. “Okay. Yeah. See you in a few.” Then he hangs up the phone and puts his hands in his pockets. “So.”

“What was that?” Bitty says, because this was clearly some stress-induced psychotic break, but Jack should know better. “You don’t just get to– you can’t just run around kissing people you don’t even like!” He’s not going to cry. He’s not. 

“What, no– I do, isn’t that the problem?” 

Bitty just stares at him. “What are you even saying right now? Has this brush with death addled your mind?” He’s not even really sure what he’s saying himself. “You don’t want me!”

“I do, though!” Jack flings his hands outward. His gaze softens, and he lowers them. “I want you. I want this.” His voice is low and so gentle Bitty wants to cry. 

“Oh,” is all he gets out before his voice cracks. “Are you sure?” He’s certain he’s shaking. If Jack says no–

“Of course I am. But–” Jack holds his hands up. “It’s okay that you’re not, you know, you just want to be friends, of course I’m going to respect your boundaries–”

“Wait. What?” Bitty folds his arms over his chest. “What do you mean? Just want to be–”

“I’m confused,” Jack interrupts. “You were on that whole ‘this isn’t how you treat your friend’ kick like five minutes ago, what was I supposed to think?”

“What were you supposed to think? What was _I_ supposed to think? You practically disappeared for _days_ and everyone else acted as if nothing had changed! I thought I must be losing my mind, and after I managed to figure out that I wasn’t, you pulled this nice-guy act out of nowhere; now you’re telling me this was all because you like me too much to act like a person around me? And it took a freaking _bomb_ to get you to admit this and this has all been very stressful!” Bitty’s pretty sure he meant this to come out calmly, but instead, he’s yelling. When did that happen? “We almost died, Jack!” He says it before he really feels the weight of it, and all the anger vanishes. “Oh, Lord, we almost died.” He’s shaking and hunched in on himself and his chest is so tight it feels like he’s going to burst.

Jack looks stunned for a moment. “Hey,” He says, and then he’s got Bitty trapped in a hug that’s too tight to be comfortable but is somehow exactly what he’s needed for a long time. Bitty’s face is mashed into Jack’s shoulder and he’s crying like he’ll never stop. “We’re okay now.” Jack pauses. “Bitty? You have to breathe.” He sounds so concerned that Bitty lets out a hysterical cackle. Naturally, this only makes Jack look more concerned.

“Come on,” Jack continues. “Deep breaths. We’re fine.” With one hand, he rubs Bitty’s back, between his shoulder blades, while the other stays on Bitty’s hip. It’s comforting. Grounding. By degrees, Bitty manages to get his breathing back under control.

Then Jack pulls away without warning, clearing his throat. “Euh, right. Glad you’re okay. Again, I don’t want to overstep any boundaries–”

 _No,_ Bitty thinks, before forcing himself to actually speak up. “No, wait.” He grabs Jack by the wrist. “You weren’t overstepping!” He hesitates, unsure of what he wants to say, but unwilling to let Jack drag them backwards again. “I– Uh. I want this too.”

Jack pulls back, and Bitty’s struck with the panicked thought that he’s somehow managed to mess this up, again. But Jack lets out a breath, and he can’t seem to hold back a smile.

“Really?” The look on his face is almost giddy. “I mean– _crisse_ , that’s a relief.” He lets out a little, nervous laugh. “So, would you maybe want to, euh, go get coffee sometime? As like, a date?” He scratches the back of his neck. “With me?” He looks down at the ground. He’s floundering. Bitty reaches up, places a hand on the back of Jack’s neck, and pulls him down into a kiss.

“Yes.”

That’s when the door to the storage room opens, and Dex pokes his head through. “Hey– Oh.” The sudden interruption has Bitty jumping back in surprise. His hand slides down to Jack’s shoulder. Jack shakes himself and clears his throat.

“Door’s open,” Dex says, and pauses. No one says anything. “You could at least manage a ‘hello’,” he grumbles. “I did just save your asses.”

“I thought that was Tango,” Jack chirps.

Dex scowls. “You know what, okay, so he had the idea, whatever. I made it happen.”

“Yeah, what did happen?” Bitty asks, relieved that Dex isn’t making a big deal about what he walked in on. He turns to face Dex, reluctantly letting his hand fall away from Jack’s shoulder. “The power went out. Why?”

Dex opens the door fully and leans against the doorframe. “Yeah, so after Jack _hung up on me_ , Boy Wonder had the idea to use an EMP to disrupt basically anything running on electricity. Which also killed the power for like, half the block.” He looks up at the ceiling. “Whoops.”

“You just, what,” Bitty asks, incredulous. “You went ahead and built an electromagnetic pulse generator in under 30 seconds?”

“No, actually. Funny enough, Nursey’s had this huge EMP device sitting in the tech lab unused for years, while he singlehandedly shielded all the computers in the tech lab against it.” Dex frowns. “And now it’s worked. Oh, god, there’s going to be no talking to him for months.”

Bitty furrows his brow. This adds context, but it still makes absolutely no sense. “Why would Nursey even have an EMP generator?”

Dex suddenly looks as if he’s aged five years. “Some things,” he says, “you just don’t ask.”

“So what I’m hearing is, we actually have Nursey to thank for this?” Jack says with a smirk.

Bitty laughs, more at how pleased with himself Jack looks than at his actual joke, until he glances at Dex and decides he’d better stop.

“Unbelievable,” Dex says, throwing his hands up in defeat and walking away muttering something about ungrateful bastards. 

Bitty watches him go, then glances to his side, where Jack is standing and has clearly been looking at him. When Bitty turns to him, his eyes dart up and away, as if to convince Bitty he was also watching Dex walk away. Soon, he turns back to Bitty and they lock eyes. Bitty’s not sure what to do or say, but then Jack just starts laughing. Bitty can’t help but laugh with him, _at_ him, at Dex, at his own embarrassment, at how convinced he was that Jack didn’t like him, at what pains it took to get him to realize how wrong he was, at Jack’s ridiculous behavior the last few days, at the insane coincidence that saved their lives. They laugh harder and harder, and Bitty can’t believe how happy he is to be alive in this moment.

The laughter gradually fades, and they both catch their breath and sigh contentedly.

“Bittle,” Jack says, sounding more comfortable than before. “What I said earlier. About coffee. How’s Tuesday?”

Bitty smiles. “That sounds perfect,” he says, and means it.

**Part Six: Something About Murder**

They reconvene in the kitchen half an hour later. When Bitty arrives, Dex and Tango are sitting at the table, peering at the exposed wiring of the bomb and jotting down notes. Jack leans against the countertop, watching their progress. 

Bitty eyes the bomb. It doesn’t look as if it’s going to go off, but then, he’s not exactly an expert. Tango poking at it so freely should be reassuring, but somehow it’s just making him more nervous. He hovers in the doorway for a moment, unsure of whether or not he wants to enter. Then Tango looks up and the decision is made for him.

“Hey, Bitty,” he says, scribbling something on his paper. “Come on in. I think we’ve just about figured this thing out.”

Bitty takes a seat in the remaining chair. “That thing isn’t going to go off, is it?”

Tango looks almost offended. “Now, that’s just rude. What do you take me for?” He picks up his pen and pokes violently at the casing of the bomb. Bitty flinches. Tango raises his eyebrows. “Chill, I took out the explosives. Nothing is going to happen.” He purses his lips. “Well, we’re all here, so we might as well start.”

Jack stands up and takes a couple steps closer, leaning on the back of Bitty’s chair. Bitty sits back in his chair just a little, tilting his head so it’s just barely resting on Jack’s chest. “What have we got?”

“First of all, I just want to note that this is not something I’d advise making at home.” Tango smirks. “That said, it’s a very distinctive model. Only a couple of people make these. Because they’re complete fucking idiots.”

Dex sighs. “Yeah, okay, and why is that?”

“I mean, just look at this thing!” He points at the wiring inside. “This stuff is such a mess I don’t even want to touch it. The timer was most likely supposed to start counting down as soon as they set it, to give them enough time to get away, but that didn’t work out so well for them. Plus, anything you can take out with an EMP isn’t something I’d be working with.”

“I guess we’re lucky Tango didn’t try to bomb us,” Jack mutters.

Tango laughs. “Yeah, I definitely would have done a better job than whatever this bullshit is.” There’s a slightly manic glint in his eyes. “This building would not be standing.”

Dex glances at Jack. “I think we trained him too well,” he whispers.

“Okay, but who did this?” Bitty asks. “That’s the important part, isn’t it?”

“Those Chad guys, so probably Ron again,” Dex says. “Went back through the security camera footage. They planted the thing, then ran around locking random doors from the outside.” He shakes his head. “Talk about unprofessional. I’m kind of embarrassed they even got in.” He leans back in his chair. “So, what do we want to do about it? Call the rest of the crew back?”

“No,” Jack says. “We can manage until their grift is over. Now that we know to be on guard, we should be fine.”

“Hey guys,” Tango says, sounding positively gleeful. “What do you think Ron’s gonna do when he finds out we’re not dead?”

“Well, you know, if we’re staying true to form, probably something stupid.” Dex folds his arms across his chest. “We’re going to have to do something about him eventually.”

Jack rests an elbow on Bitty’s shoulder. “Oh, I know. And we will. But for that, we need to be at full strength, so we’ll wait for everyone else to get back.” He frowns. “They said they’d be back sometime this morning.” 

That’s when there’s a muffled thump from somewhere downstairs. Bitty tenses up and looks at Jack. “Did you hear that?”

But Jack’s already moving toward the door, a rolling pin in one hand. He peers around the doorframe, raising the rolling pin like it’s a baseball bat. Bitty’s holding his breath. Then Jack’s shoulders slump, and he lowers the rolling pin.

“Is there any particular reason,” he says, voice a mixture of amusement and resignation, “that you’re sneaking back in the dark at six am?” He stands back from the doorway to let Lardo enter, pulling Whiskey and Chowder behind her. A few seconds later, Ransom, Holster, and Nursey follow, looking shamefaced.

“Is there any particular reason you’re baking at six am?” Lardo mutters. She flings herself onto Tango, who somehow manages to catch her from his seated position. She stretches and yawns, resting one arm on his shoulders and quirking an eyebrow at Jack.

“What was that noise?” Bitty asks.

“Holster ran into the end table,” Ransom says. Holster looks off to the side and purses his lips.

“No one had to know that, Ransom,” he mutters.

It’s very quickly becoming apparent that something’s wrong here. Everyone’s acting twitchy and odd, and Bitty has no idea why they were trying to sneak back in if they were supposed to be on some job. But either Jack doesn’t notice, or he’s playing along for some reason.

“So,” Jack says. “How was the job? I want to hear _everything_.” The grin on his face is positively wolfish, and okay, yes, he’s definitely on to them.

Lardo stiffens in her seat. “Yeah, sure,” she says, voice nonchalant. She glances around. “Tell him… Whiskey.”

Whiskey slouches and raises his eyebrows. “It was good. Productive.” He doesn’t say anything else, and the long pause after his words makes it pretty clear that he’s not planning to.

Ransom steps in. “Yeah,” he starts. “It was an art theft job. Good stuff. Decent security, so we could only really get in during this gala that was happening in the gallery. So Holster and I were keeping everyone nice and distracted down there while Lardo went in and got it.” He grabs Nursey by the shoulders and kneads them with his fingertips. “We had Nursey here watching the whole thing go down in the van with Whiskey, and Chowder was dealing with security.”

Jack smiles. “But wouldn’t most of the security have been busy dealing with the gala itself?” He turns to Chowder. “Must have been a pretty easy job for you, then.”

Chowder twitches and looks at Ransom. “It wasn’t terrible,” he finally says. It sounds more like a question.

Jack leans forward, and in a terrible way, Bitty’s reminded of a shark scenting blood. “They didn’t have any guns, did they?”

His face goes through a number of interesting contortions. “I mean, no. It was fine. Everything went fine.”

“So, what did you steal?” Jack says. “Painting? Sculpture?”

Chowder’s face goes blank. “Um–”

Jack raises his eyebrows. 

“Pottery,” says Lardo, at the exact same moment Nursey says, “A tapestry.” 

Lardo looks at him. “A _tapestry_?” she says, while Nursey corrects to “Pottery.”

“Weweren’tstealinganythingwejustwantedtogetoutofthe‘haus!” Chowder takes a deep breath. 

“I’m sorry?” Jack looks genuinely flabbergasted. “What was that?”

Lardo groans. “Goddammit, Christopher.”

“We weren’t stealing anything, we just wanted to get out of the ‘haus,” he repeats. “You guys were acting super weird and it was driving us all crazy.”

“Uh, excuse me, I was not acting weird,” Bitty interjects. “That was not me. That was all him.” 

“Hang on, why wasn’t I invited?” Dex leans back in his chair. “Maybe I wanted to come with, huh?”

Nursey shrugs. “Sorry, dude.”

“You know you’re not stuck here, right?” Jack crosses his arms. “You can leave when you want to. You don’t have to make up insane cover stories.”

“I didn’t know that,” says Whiskey. “For all I know, I’m still a hostage.”

“You were a terrible hostage,” Lardo mutters.

Whiskey raises his hand. “So is anyone else going to mention the bomb on the table, or is that just like, one of those things we don’t talk about?” He bats Tango’s hand away from the wiring. “You probably shouldn’t touch that.”

Tango hits him back, like the child that he is.

“It’s a bomb,” says Dex. “Goes boom.” He mimics the sound of an explosion.

Jack sighs. “I think we all knew that.” He turns to the group. “Long story short, Ron is still mad, and he tried to blow us all up this morning. So maybe it was a good thing that most of us weren’t around.”

There’s a long, heavy silence, finally broken by Lardo. “So, everybody’s okay, right?”

“Yeah, it was sure lucky that Nursey had that EMP thing just lying around.” Tango leans his chin against the bomb casing.

“No, don’t–” Dex says, but it’s too late. Nursey straightens up and smiles proudly.

“Really?” he says. “Because let me tell you, I’ve put up with no end of hassle from Poindexter about that thing–”

“Anyway,” Jack waves a hand, bringing the attention back to him. “That’s really all we know at this point, so for the time being, I guess we just proceed as normal.”

“Wait, but aren’t we going to go after him?” Lardo asks. “He tried to kill us. All of us. He only succeeded at trying to kill some of us, but still.” She turns to Whiskey. “Wait. You worked for this guy, shouldn’t you know something about this?”

Whiskey shrugs. “I don’t know anything, man, that’s kind of my whole deal.”

“Oh, come on.” Lardo grabs his shoulder. “You probably know at least one thing. Like where he is, for instance.”

“Uh, probably right where you left him?” He pauses. “The guy is kind of an idiot.”

“No, really.”

“No,” Whiskey says. “Really.”

***

“Why aren’t we going after Ron right now?” Bitty asks. 

Jack looks up from his laptop. “What?” His forehead scrunches up.

Bitty shifts his weight and repeats the question.

“Well, we don’t have a plan,” Jack says. He closes his laptop and leans back against the couch. “That would be kind of operative.”

“But we haven’t even started making a plan.” Bitty sits down next to him. “What’s that about?”

He sighs. “It’s just–” Jack looks up at the ceiling. “I can’t even believe I’m about to say this, but we need Parse.”

“Why, though,” Bitty says, before he can stop himself. Jack hesitates. “No, come on, sorry.”

“He’s involved in this too,” Jack points out. “He did shoot Ron in the kneecap.” And it’s a good reason, Bitty supposes, but somehow it feels like a cop-out.

“Is that the only reason?”

Jack thinks for a moment, then looks right at him. “I won’t lie. There could be parts of this that will be… unpleasant. And I may need him around to deal with those parts.”

Bitty has so many objections to this, the first of which is just who Parse is as a person. He’s irritating, and arrogant, and definitely a bad influence. And if they bring him in on this, there’s no way to tell what will happen. Things just tend to go pear-shaped around the guy.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” It’s the most polite way Bitty can think of to phrase the question he actually wants to ask, which is something more along the lines of _Have you lost your heathen mind?_

“No, not at all,” Jack says. “But it’s the best bad idea I’ve got.”

Bitty heaves a sigh and smiles. “Well, if it’s the best bad one.”

***

The problem with trying to recruit Parse for their revenge plan is that, in order to recruit him, they first have to find him. After at least seven failed attempts to just call him like normal people, they decide that more extreme measures might be in order. 

A cell phone trace (thank you, Nursey) leads them to a large, stone building in Boston, with long white pillars and a set of stairs leading up to the entrance. Jack, Bitty, and Whiskey all look at each other. 

“Is this the Fenway?” Bitty asks. There has to have been some kind of mistake, because there’s no way Kent Parson is hanging around a museum of fine art. Hipster pieces of garbage like him don’t do that. There’s a proprietary part of Bitty that takes offense at the idea that Kent Parson, human disaster, is currently looking at world-renowned art and he isn’t.

“This makes no sense,” Jack replies. “He doesn’t even like art.”

They find him in the modern art section, in a special exhibition about Mark Rothko. Parse is standing in front of one painting, [a riot of red and black.](https://www.wikiart.org/en/mark-rothko/black-red-and-black-1968) His hat is tilted at a jaunty angle, and he’s got a Slurpee in one hand. Swoops is sitting on a bench a few feet behind him, shoulders hunched as he squints at the canvas.

“Jeff,” Parse says, sounding delighted, “I have no fucking clue what this means.” And you know, now that Bitty knows his first name, he’s never going to be able to get it out of his head. Swoops is just one of those guys who doesn’t seem as though he should have one. 

“What are you doing?” Jack asks. He shoves his hands in his pockets.

Parse barely reacts. “What does it look like I’m doing?” He takes a long, loud sip of his Slurpee and turns around. “What are you doing?”

Jack scowls. “Why are you still in Boston?”

“I’m on vacation.” Parse moves to stand next to Swoops and rests an elbow on his shoulder. “Figured I’d stick around a couple days, do some stupid touristy shit. Last time we were here, things were a little–” he pauses, looking up at the ceiling.

“Insane?” Jack supplies.

“Busy,” Parse says.

Swoops snorts. He still doesn’t speak. Bitty doesn’t know what he’s expecting.

“Anyway.” Parse raises an eyebrow and sips the Slurpee again. “I don’t suppose you know why some guy tried to stab me yesterday?”

“Let’s think about that,” Whiskey says. “Who do we know who likes stabbing people, and who you might have shot recently?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say his name in front of the Rothko,” Parse says.

Jack sighs deeply. “Why do I talk to you?”

Parse shrugs. “Well, you got me. By all accounts, it doesn’t make sense.”

“Did he just quote The Emperor’s New Groove?” Whiskey whispers to Bitty. Bitty just closes his eyes and sighs. What is his life turning into that, at this point, he’s not even surprised?

“Wait, is there a point to this conversation?” Parse says. “What do you want?”

Jack glances around. He takes a step forward and puts a hand on Parse’s shoulder. It’s a gesture that looks friendly, but Bitty can see Jack’s knuckles whiten. “Why don’t you come back to the Warenhaus and we’ll discuss it there?”

Swoops stands up and in one fluid movement, he’s right behind Parse, looking at Jack as though he hasn’t quite decided whether or not he’ll punch him. Bitty isn’t sure it’s a good idea to give him enough time to make that decision.

But Parse just laughs, and shakes Jack’s hand off. “Well, since you ask so nicely.” He glances back at Swoops, and the two of them exchange a look. Parse gestures to the door. “Lead the way, if you’d be so kind.”

Jack eyes him for a moment, then starts for the door, Whiskey following close behind him. Swoops goes too, and then it’s just Bitty and Parse.

Bitty raises his eyebrows. “After you.”

Parse bares his teeth in what might be a smile. “If you insist.”

***

“So, like, where’s the rest of your gang, or whatever?” Lardo folds her hands and rests her chin on top of them.

Parse glances around. “My what now?”

“Your… group. Organization. Whatever. Aren’t the Aces supposed to be this big thing?”

“Excuse you,” Parse says, “are you suggesting that we’re not?”

Lardo purses her lips. “But where’s the rest of you?”

Parse takes an alarmed inventory of his limbs. “The _rest of me?_ ”

Jack sighs. “Please stop.”

“So there are only two of you?” Lardo asks.

“ _Two of me?_ ”

“Stop.”

“What the fuck,” Parse mutters. “East Coast bullshit.”

“In the Aces,” Bitty clarifies. “There are only two of you in the Aces?”

“Oh,” Parse says. “Yeah. I guess.” 

“Why are you like this?” Jack asks. “God. Anyway. If we could actually do something professional today?”

“I’m not the one going around asking people where the _rest of them is_.”

Swoops rolls his eyes. 

“Okay!” Jack taps his pen on the table. “Enough, already. Work. Planning. How are we going to get back at Ron?”

“Could we not just kill him,” Lardo says, picking at her fingernails. “It seems like, you know, the most efficient thing.”

“Murder,” Bitty says. “Murder is the most efficient thing.”

She deflates slightly. “Well, when you say it like that.”

Parse raises his hand. “As much as I hate to agree with literally any of you, why don’t we just kill him?”

“Because if he’s dead, he’s not paying for what he did,” Jack snaps. “Do you not want him to pay?”

“No,” Parse says. “I want him dead.”

“Discounting murder as a viable solution for the moment, let’s come up with some other options.” Jack looks as if he might snap his pen in two.

“The guy’s probably got some skeletons in his closet,” Shitty says. “We could do some digging. Or create some skeletons.” He shrugs. “Probably wouldn’t be that hard. Fraud, embezzlement, stuff like that. Some of it might even be true.”

Lardo points at him. “I like that. Send the fucker to jail. Maybe someone’ll shank him.”

Jack winces. “Lardo. No.” He looks at Shitty. “But that’s not a bad idea. How would we do that?” 

He shrugs. “I mean, we’d have to leave some kind of a paper trail.”

“But we’d need time to plant evidence, right?” Bitty asks. “We can’t just sneak in while he’s there. We’ll get caught.”

Jack narrows his eyes. Then, slowly, a Cheshire Cat grin spreads across his face. “What if he’s not there?”

***

“This is a stupid plan,” Parse says. He’s in the back of the van, resting his head against the window and clicking a pen. It’s Jack’s pen, now that Bitty thinks of it. He’s not exactly sure how Parse even got it. But as he’s driving, it’s not like he can leap back there and try to retrieve it.

“Seriously,” Parse continues. “We’re just going to snatch this guy off the street? Neither of you have a problem with that?”

“What, you mean ethically?” Jack asks.

“No! As in, it’s a stupid plan!” He crosses his legs and twirls the pen a few times.

Jack narrows his eyes. “That’s mine.”

Parse grins. “That’s unfortunate.”

“Please be quiet,” Bitty says. This is exhausting. It’s like playing babysitter to two ill-tempered toddlers, except the toddlers both know at least 200 ways to kill a man with their bare hands. He turns to Jack.“Explain to me why I’m not with the others at Ron’s building.”

The light turns green. Jack sighs. “Because most likely, those Chad guys are going to be there too, and if they’ve got this massive grudge against you, I don’t want you anywhere near them.”

Bitty smiles. “Are you suggesting that, after all the practice you made me do, I can’t handle myself?”

“If I have to keep listening to you two sickening lovebirds,” Parse says in a jarring monotone, “I’m going to vomit sand.”

“Wouldn’t you have to _eat_ sand first?” Bitty asks.

“Are we there yet?” Parse says.

Bitty rolls his eyes. “Shouldn’t you know?”

“It’s on the next block,” Jack says. “Right next to Walgreens.” 

Bitty nods. He can already see the awning up ahead. There’s an open spot right next to it, luckily, so he pulls into it and parks. He glances out the window at the bar Ron apparently frequents. It’s a classy establishment, or at least looks like one from the outside. Like the kind of place businessmen go to discuss their work after a long day at the office. Like the kind of place someone who apparently drinks _port_ would go.

Bitty’s never going to be over that.

“So do we just fucking wait–”

“ _Yes_ ,” Jack and Bitty say.

“Fine,” Parse says, raising his hands in surrender. He leans back in the seat and mutters something under his breath about how this kind of thing never happens in Vegas.

It’s about five minutes later when Jack suddenly tenses up.

“Get ready,” He says, and Parse sits up straight and unclips his seatbelt. 

“Where?”

“Coming from behind us.” 

Bitty turns around and spots Ron making his way up the sidewalk, leaning heavily on a cane. He’s looking down at his phone and frowning. 

“Cool,” Parse says, and then he’s out of the car and walking toward Ron purposefully, hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt. “Hey, asshole!” he yells, and Ron’s head snaps up. His eyes widen. Parse kicks him in the kneecap, sending Ron toppling forward. In one fluid motion, Parse catches him and jabs a syringe into his neck. 

“How much have you had already?” Parse demands, presumably for the benefit of onlookers who are starting to look a little concerned. “Jesus, man, you said you were getting on the wagon.” He grabs the collar of Ron’s suit and drags him unceremoniously back to the car.

“‘Hey, asshole’?” Bitty says.

Parse closes the car door and sighs. “Just drive.”

***

“This is boring,” Parse says. He’s sprawled on one of the armchairs in the living room, picking at his fingernails. Ron is on the couch opposite him.

“Will you quit whining?” Jack stands by the door, leaning against the wall. “It’s been the same bullshit with you for six years.”

“You used to like my bullshit.”

“Did I hear the past tense?” Jack asks.

Parse clutches his chest in a deadpan mockery of heartbreak. “That’s just hurtful.”

“If we could possibly focus on the issue at hand,” Bitty says, and they both look at him. “How are we going to deal with this guy?”

“Well, we’ve got to at least keep him here until everyone else is done at his place,” Jack says. “Speaking of that, how’s it going over there, guys?”

Nursey answers through the earpiece. “We just made it in. We’ll keep you posted on how much time we need.”

“Okay.” Jack turns to Parse. “Any word from Swoops?”

Parse shrugs. “What can I say, he’s not a very chatty guy.”

Jack looks to Bitty for help, but Bitty’s not about to step into that. “If you could make an attempt?”

Parse sighs. “Fine.” He turns away from the two of them. “Hey. Where are you?” After a moment, he turns back to Jack and Bitty. “They’re on the way. Should be getting there soon.”

“Why doesn’t he talk very much?” Bitty asks, but no one answers. Of course not. Why would they? He tries again. “Well, now what?” 

“We wait for him to wake up,” Jack says. 

“And then what?” Parse stretches backwards, his shoulders popping loudly. “We make nice with him? What, exactly, is that going to accomplish? He goes on his way, and then next week he sends a sniper to take us all out?”

“He would be going to jail,” Bitty says. 

Parse snorts. “You think he can’t call in a hit from jail? That’s cute.” He rests his elbows on the table. “Maybe he succeeds, maybe he doesn’t, but he’s not just going to stop because you put him away.”

“Why do you care?” Bitty snaps. “It’s not your problem.”

“You think I don’t have a stake in this?” Parse leans forward. “We almost got killed. And sure, I can deal with that, but Swoops shouldn’t have to.”

“He’s giant, though.”

Parse glances over at Jack, who says nothing. “You know what, I don’t have to explain myself to you. You have less than no right to know anything about this.”

“So, what are you suggesting, then?” Jack folds his arms. 

“Kill him? The fuck did you think I was gonna suggest?” Parse turns toward him, leaning forward to balance his elbows on his knees. He sighs. Some of his arrogance falls away, and for the first time since Bitty met him, he seems less like a larger-than-life persona contained in human form, and more like an actual person. “Look. I know you don’t like my way of doing things. But sometimes we have to do things we don’t like doing.” 

“Like in Reno?” Bitty snaps. 

Parse bristles. “I just brought you the job, okay–”

“We were almost killed! I _stabbed_ someone–”

“Yeah, and that was all you, Itty Bitty.” He shakes his head and sighs disgustedly. “God, I am so sick of dealing with you people. You want to do this stuff, but you don’t want to accept that there are risks and consequences. If you want to play in this sandbox, you have to accept that you’re going to get a little dirty. If you can’t, get out and stop making it harder for the rest of us. I don’t really give a shit about you.”

“Hey,” Jack warns. 

He throws up his hands and slouches in the chair. “Fine. But you know I’m not wrong. You’re in this shit. We all are. There aren’t a lot of ways out of it.”

Jack doesn’t say anything. Instead, he looks at Ron, slumped on the couch. There’s something in his eyes that Bitty doesn’t like. Something cold and hard. “Maybe,” he says. 

“Jack,” Bitty says, feeling as if someone’s thrown a bucket of ice-cold water over him, “you’re not seriously considering–”

“I have to consider all of our options. He has a point. Putting Ron in prison is hardly going to limit his ability to blow us up.” He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “Kenny. Go in the kitchen for a second.”

Parse pushes himself up out of the chair and heads for the stairs. “Clock’s ticking,” he warns.

As soon as he’s out the door, Bitty turns to Jack. “ _Kenny_?” 

Jack sits down heavily in the chair next to Bitty. “What if he’s right? What if this is the only option?” He rests his head in his hands. “ _Putain_ ,” he mutters. 

Bitty reaches out to card his fingers through Jack’s hair, and Jack leans into the touch a little. “Forget options,” Bitty says. “What do you want to do?”

“Well, it’s not like I _want_ to kill the guy.” Jack’s voice is slightly muffled under his hands. “But if I don’t–”

“Jack,” Bitty says, then hesitates, suddenly aware of how much power he has in this moment. “If Ron comes after us again, we can figure something out. We can. But right now, we’re deciding whether he lives or dies. And I’m not going to try to tell you how to make that choice. So, let me ask you: Is this who you are?”

Jack goes still under his hand, and for a heartstopping second, there’s complete silence. Then he sits up straight, and Bitty’s hand falls away. “No,” Jack says, eyes clear. “No, it’s not.” He stands up and goes to the stairs. “Parse,” he calls, “come down here, please.”

There’s a clatter of footsteps, and Parse appears in the doorway, leaning against the frame and looking nonchalant. “Well?”

“We’re sticking to the plan,” Jack says.

Parse stiffens. “I wouldn’t recommend that–”

“It’s not your decision to make.” Jack just looks at him, and after a second, Parse looks away. It’s the closest thing to weakness Bitty’s seen in him. “Wake him up, will you?” Jack gestures to Ron. 

Grumbling, Parse goes over to the couch and shakes him, a little harder than might be strictly necessary. Then, there’s the sound of a low groan, and Ron sits up, rubbing at his forehead. 

“What the hell–” he says, then sees Parse. “Dammit.”

Parse smirks and steps aside. “All yours,” he says.

Then, suddenly, Jack is looming over Ron, one hand forcing his chin up so they’re making eye contact. “Hello, Ronald,” he says pleasantly. “You’ve been busy, haven’t you?”

Ron says nothing. 

“You very nearly got to me,” Jack says. “Congratulations. But now you know I can get to you, too. So, let me make you a suggestion. Get out of my city, and don’t ever come near me or my team again.”

“Or what?” Ron says.

Jack’s grip tightens, and he jerks his chin at Parse. “Or you’ll have to deal with him.”

The grin that spreads across Parse’s face is delighted and nothing short of terrifying. He cracks his knuckles, then shakes out his fingers, and Ron’s face goes chalky white.

“Do you understand?” Jack asks.

Ron nods, eyes wide. 

There’s a crackle of static in Bitty’s ear, and then Nursey’s voice. “Hey, we’re all done over here. Heading out now.”

“Hm,” Bitty says, unable to verbally confirm with Ron right there. “Mmhm.” He turns to Parse and raises his eyebrows meaningfully. “If that’s all settled, then, why don’t we take the gentleman back to his office?”

Parse turns slightly away from Ron and raises a hand to his ear. “Yes, why don’t we take him back?” he says, with a slight pause, as he waits for Swoops to answer. Then he turns back to Jack and Ron. “Shall we?”

Jack stands up straight. “Certainly. Of course,” he tells Ron, “we have to take a few precautions. You understand.” He produces a blindfold from somewhere and shows it to Ron.

“Of course,” Ron says, still looking a little twitchy. He accepts the blindfold and ties it on himself, hands shaking slightly. Parse hauls him up out of the chair and guides him toward the door. He sticks out one foot, and when Ron trips, he snickers.

“Parse,” Jack says, wearily.

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No, I’m not.”

***

They park on the street, across from Ron’s building. Swoops is leaning up against a parking meter, tapping away on his phone. He looks up as they pull in alongside him, and gives a two-fingered salute.

In the back seat, Parse takes the blindfold off Ron and shoves him out the door. He takes a moment to reorient himself, smoothing his suit and attempting to fix his tie, and then squares his shoulders and starts across the street.

They all get out, forming a small group around the parking meter, and watch him go. As he reaches the door to the building, three people in FBI jackets descend on him. Then he’s in cuffs and being led toward a car, where another man stands with his back to them.

“So, Zimms,” Parse says. “Why’d you tell him to get out of town if the feds were going to be here anyway?”

Jack shrugs. “Had to think of something suitably menacing.”

“You’re such a dweeb,” Parse says, poking at his shoulder. Then he holds out his hand. “Hey. Don’t be a stranger.”

Jack takes his hand and shakes it. “Yeah, next time I see you, you’d better run,” he says. 

“Oh, what-fucking-ever.” He lets go. “I’m gonna go get a Slurpee.” Parse adjusts his hat and starts walking.

Swoops gives a little wave and turns to follow. 

“Wait,” Bitty says. “I’ve been meaning to ask you this. Why don’t you talk?”

Swoops shrugs. “I just don’t have anything to say to you.” He nods at Jack. “If you’re ever in the area, please feel free to not drop by.” Then he goes, hands in his pockets, and whistling. 

“Okay,” Bitty says. “Well. What now?” He turns to Jack, who’s staring across the street, frozen to the spot. “Jack?” He follows Jack’s gaze to the man standing by the FBI car. He’s staring back at them, a look of shock on his face. “Who’s that?”

Jack swallows hard. “My dad.”

“Your dad is in the FBI?”

“Yeah. They call him Bad Bob.”

Bitty’s brain short circuits. He knows about Bad Bob Zimmermann. Every thief who doesn’t have a death wish knows about Bad Bob Zimmermann. Bad Bob is notorious for bringing in the worst of the worst. There’s no one he can’t track. Except, apparently, his own son.

Bad Bob smiles, then nods. 

Jack nods back, then takes Bitty by the shoulder and starts walking. “Let’s go,” he says.

Bitty looks back over his shoulder. “Is he not going to arrest us?”

“Guess not.” Jack smiles. They turn a corner, and he ruffles Bitty’s hair. “Hey, you know, I never did get that coffee date.”

Bitty grins up at him. “Guess you’ll have to catch me first,” he says, and takes off running.

“Hey!” Jack says, and chases after him, his laughter echoing against the walls of the city.

**Extras: Parse’s Goblin Adventures**

**Fucking Kabul**

“It must be a bitch to find these cherry spots to perch in all the damn time.” Kenny muses, biting into an apricot, because an apple would just be too mainstream. “I don’t know how you do it.” He’s lounging on a couple of wooden crates, reaching through the open top to get another apricot. The smell of them in the cool night air is overpowering.

Jack looks up from his half-assembled rifle. Kenny’s right; Kabul is not the ideal place to find quiet, abandoned alcoves adjacent to people’s living spaces. Jack would much prefer the high-rise office buildings and abandoned apartments of Boston, but unfortunately, Massachusetts isn’t the focus of too many of the US military’s sniping missions. “It’s about knowing where your target is gonna be and finding a line of sight that happens to intersect with a relatively unobserved space,” he informs his partner.

“I didn’t say I _wanted_ to know how you do it,” Kenny replies. “That’s your job, not mine.” He punctuates the statement by digging the pit out of his apricot and flicking it at Jack.

Jack catches the projectile easily and tosses it aside, glancing up from his work once more to see Kenny’s expression sour as if to say, _showoff_. He smirks. “And what, pray tell, is your job?”

“Well, I’m _supposed_ to be your spotter, but you’re this big-shot prodigy who pulls off these crazy shots with nothing but your eyes and your rifle’s scope, leaving me to eat apricots and, I dunno, stargaze?” He swings his high-powered spotting scope around before lying back and looking through it at the night sky.

“So you’re saying you’d rather be sitting stock-still in the brush somewhere watching some other Afghan next to some two-bit sniper who actually needs your help?” Jack asks, testing the manipulation of his gun on its tripod and looking through the scope to find the target’s house. He increases the magnification to zoom in on the central window, in which a man is lighting a cigarette – the target. Jack checks his watch. _Taking our smoke break a little late tonight, eh?_

“Fuck no. I’d just rather have some job apart from relaying orders that you could easily take direct from the higher-ups. No, fuck that; I’d _rather_ be partying. Or dining. Or just drinking.” He sits up and whines, “Ugh, Jack, we could be drinking.” Then he gets up and walks over to crouch next to Jack. “We’ve been up here for hours. How much longer is this gonna take?”

Jack rolls his eyes. “It’s been half an hour, Kenny. We had to wait for him to be in position. Shouldn’t be much longer. Just eat your apricots.”

Kenny grins. “Oh, lighten up, _Jacques_ ,” he says. Then he pulls an apricot out of his pocket and flings it at Jack. It hits him in the forehead. The surprise, Jack tells himself, is what sends him falling backward. So he grabs Kenny’s forearm as he falls, sending them both down in a tangle of limbs.

“Ow,” Kenny says, face mashed into Jack’s stomach. “Fuck off.”

Jack looks up at the sky. “You started this.”

Kenny rests his elbows on Jack’s stomach and props his chin on his hands. “Why do you have to be right all the time, jesus.”

Jack rolls onto his side, ignoring Kenny’s squawk of outrage, and goes back to the sniper rifle. He shakes his head and resumes his aim on the target as Kenny picks himself up and brushes the dust off his clothes. “Fine then,” he says, “Just shoot the guy already so we can get out of here.” 

The Afghan is still smoking his cigarette and looking out the window, presumably at the stars. This is about the time when Jack would normally test for wind direction and speed, but tonight, he doesn’t need to. The wind is whipping past his head, practically offsetting the balance of his tripod. And it’s blowing perpendicular to the flight path of his bullet. _Formidable_. 

Regardless, he adjusts for the wind’s velocity and takes his aim, confident that he’ll be shooting to kill. He breathes out slowly. Then, he squeezes the trigger…

The target’s head turns sharply to look at something and Jack stops short, taking his finger off the trigger. “ _Marde_ ,” he says, under his breath, watching to see what caught the Afghan’s attention.

“What? What happened?” Kenny says in his ear. Jack’s sharp intake of breath is the only indication he allows to show that he’s startled by how close Kenny suddenly is to him.

“Kent. I’m working.”

“Pshh, whatever.” Kenny says, but he moves away.

A split second later, a small girl enters Jack’s view. The man moves to greet her. _Maudit_ , Jack thinks. He can’t get a clean shot if she makes the target move around like this. The man picks up the girl, who Jack realizes must be his daughter, and swings her around, smiling and laughing. _Crisse, vraiment?_ The wind is bad enough, but humanizing the target? Someone up there doesn’t want this guy to die tonight.

Somewhere behind him, a phone rings. Kenny swears and presses it to his ear, suddenly all business. “Yeah?” He glances back over his shoulder at Jack. “It’s Roberts,” he says, covering the mouthpiece with one hand. “Yes, ma’am, we’re almost done, it’s just–” Kenny turns back to Jack again. “What’s the holdup, exactly?” 

“There’s– There’s a girl… his daughter came in.” Jack finishes, sounding weak even to himself.

“So?”

“ _So?_ ”

As Jack watches, the Afghan sits his daughter on the windowsill and, laughing, offers her his cigarette. She grabs it and nearly shoves the whole thing in her mouth, but he plucks it out of her fingers before she gets that far. Suddenly, he looks over his shoulder. A woman – his wife, Jack guesses – walks briskly up to him and slaps the cigarette out of his hand. Even from this great distance, Jack can hear her screeching at him in Pashto. He snickers. 

Kenny winces and holds the phone away from his ear. On the other end of the line, Jack hears indistinct shouting. “Yes,” Kenny says, “yes, I know–”

Then the Afghan raises his hand in a threatening gesture, and his wife backs off. He hits her anyway, knocking her to the floor and out of Jack’s view. 

And Jack remembers what he’s here to do.

He looks through his scope again. The girl is still sitting in the window, apparently crying, and the man is mostly obscured by her as he tries to cheer her up. 

“Jack, take the shot.”

“I can’t–”

The Afghan pulls his wife to her feet and leads her by her wrist to the crying girl. The woman pets her daughter’s head and speaks to her as her husband lights a fresh cigarette. He’s standing a good half a meter from them now.

Kenny is half listening to whatever Roberts is saying on the phone, half paying attention to Jack. “Take the fucking shot,” he snaps.

Jack squeezes the trigger.

The shot is good. Center of the forehead. The Afghan falls out of view, and Jack’s job is done.

“It’s done,” Kenny says, then hangs up.

Then Jack does something incredibly stupid, something he’s never done before: he keeps watching. He should be packing up his gun and heading out to get a drink with Kenny, but his eyes won’t leave the blood spatter on the wall. When they finally do, he sees the woman still holding her daughter, looking down at her husband with wide eyes. 

Jack can easily picture what she’s seeing, having himself watched plenty of soldiers die, but he can only imagine everything that’s stirring in her mind. Keeping her daughter from looking, making sure not to scream or cry out, not knowing where the shot came from or whether another is coming for her. He wonders why she doesn’t move, doesn’t usher the girl out of the room. _Get her out of there,_ he wills. _Don’t let her see the body._ He guesses she’s frozen in fear, and his suspicion is confirmed when the girl wriggles free of her mother’s embrace and, seeing what no child should have to see, screams and falls to her father’s side. Jack imagines her shaking him, trying to wake him. 

The woman, reanimated by her child’s screams, pries the girl away and hugs her tightly. They stand there a moment, crying together, blood from the girl’s hands marring the woman’s clothes. All Jack can think is _Mon Dieu, qu'est-ce que j'ai fait?_ Then the woman looks up and at their position, almost as if she can see them. On a logical level, Jack knows there’s no way she could have spotted them in the dark. But still, he’s frozen to the spot. She pulls the girl away from the window and out of sight, and Jack is left to stare at the blood-stained wall once more.

“… rmann… Ground Control to Major _Jacques_ …” Kenny’s voice comes into focus and Jack realizes he’s been trying to get his attention for a while now.

“H– Huh?” 

Kenny looks through his own scope at the house and lets out a low whistle. “Nice shot, Zimms.” Jack looks down at his hands and realizes he’s shaking. The air is thick with the scent of the apricots, and as it seeps into his nose, Jack thinks he might vomit.

“I…”

Kenny follows Jack’s gaze down to his hands, and then suddenly he’s crouching next to Jack, squeezing too tight and Jack wants to scream but he just can’t make his voice work. “Hey,” Kenny says, low and fierce, his eyes boring into Jack’s. “You’re fine, okay? You’re good.” Then he stands and groans. “Shit, Zimms, I need a drink. C’mon.”

Jack follows. He can’t shake the feeling of nausea, but maybe the drinks will help. 

**The Goddamn Restaurant Scene**

The moral of the story is this: someday, Parse is going to stop getting screwed over by Jack Zimmermann acting like a goddamn baby. It’s been four years since Kabul. This really shouldn’t still be a thing. Because apparently he can’t even give Jack a job out of the goodness of his heart (and also to check up on him, he’s not going to lie) without the whole damn thing blowing up in his face.

It’s just fucking typical. He plans a big, fancy dinner date, he gets dressed up, he even wears a goddamn buttonhole, and who manages to interrupt it? Jack fucking Zimmermann.

It’s not like Parse wasn’t a little curious about Jack’s new gig when he offered him this job, but now he’s just so fed up with this whole ordeal that there’s no room for nostalgia. What kind of pretentious Robin Hood fuckery is this? Jack can’t just run around pretending he’s so much better than the rest of them because he does illegal shit to help people. Whatever. Stealing shit is still stealing shit, even if you’re Jack Zimmermann, the high and mighty.

Parse likes to think he’s a pretty simple guy. He does bad things, and he knows they’re bad. He does them to pay his rent and because it’s pretty much the only thing he’s good at. He doesn’t try to delude himself that doing bad things for noble reasons is the same as doing good things. 

He’s pretty honest that way. He also doesn’t freak about doing bad things to other people when they try the same shit first, unlike some people he could name.

It’s fucking pathetic, is what it is.

So anyway. He’s in this fancy Italian restaurant, in a black button down and slacks. Swoops is sitting across from him, drinking seltzer water. They’ve placed their orders, and for the first time in several weeks, Parse isn’t thinking about work. It’s nice. Relaxing. He should do this more often. 

That’s when his phone buzzes. What the fuck. After a second, it stops, and he eyes it warily, then reaches for his drink.

The phone buzzes again, and he nearly spits all over the table. Instead, he manages to snort water up his nose, which is as fucking annoying as it is painful.

Swoops looks at him. “Are you going to get that?” He glances down at the phone.

“I really don’t want to,” Parse tells him.

Swoops hands him the phone. “You should probably get that.”

Parse sighs. He flips open the phone and presses it to his ear. “ _What._ ” 

A long and increasingly creative string of cursing in French follows, the likes of which Parse hasn’t heard since–

Ohhhhhh.

“Zimmermann?” he says, wary. “What do you want?” Jack’s talking really fast, and it’s been a long time since he’s spoken any French. All he can really make out are the words “killer” and “motel”. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs again. “In English, please?”

“Va chier, ‘ _en anglais_ ’!” Well. Parse certainly knows what that means. Jack continues with a defense of his nationality and his right to speak whatever language he chooses. Okay. So. This is getting boring. Parse is considering hanging up. Across the table, Swoops sighs. People are starting to look at them. Then Jack asks if he knows anything about some “assassin”. 

Oh, assassin. So now Jack’s patronizing him with fucking _cognates_. 

“Uhh, nope,” he replies, popping the p.

Then Jack’s demanding that he get his ass over there, wherever the fuck “there” is. The waitress reappears, setting two plates down in front of them. Parse looks down at the food. “I’m a little busy,” he says.

Jack, apparently, doesn’t give a fuck that he’s busy. He wants him “there” right fucking now.

“Where–” Jack hangs up. “… are… you...” He sighs.

Swoops looks up from his pasta. “I’m not going to get to eat my shrimp linguine, am I?” He slams his hands down on the table. “Dammit, Kent, I wanted one nice date.”

**A Shitty Situation**

It’s at moments like these that Shitty questions every life decision he’s made that has led him here. If he’d actually listened to his parents, he’d be practicing corporate law in a nice corner office, not tied to a chair with broken ribs and a throbbing head.

Of course, then pretty much every other aspect of his life would fucking suck, but hey. A guy can dream. 

He’s not actually sure what time of day it is. There are no windows in this room, and the lights never go out, so he’s just kind of been sitting here in uncomfortable silence for like, two days, maybe. Except for the torture, of course. There was that. 

Fuck, his head hurts. He leans back and looks up at the ceiling. There are twenty-four tiles, and they’re all a terrible, speckled gray. He thinks there’s mold on them. Then, one of the tiles starts to wiggle.

“What–” Shitty sits up straight and looks closer. No, it’s definitely moving. Then, in an explosion of dust, a foot crashes through the tile, followed by a leg.

“Fuck!” says a muffled voice from inside the ceiling. The foot disappears back through the hole, and shards of broken polystyrene fall to the floor. Then a guy drops down from the newly formed hole in the ceiling, brushing dust from his clothes. His back is to Shitty, then he turns. He’s a young guy, maybe a year or two older than Shitty, but dressed like some preppy Harvard motherfucker. His face seems to be set in a permanent smirk.

Shitty doesn’t trust this. This guy could be here to help, or he could be here to beat him up some more. Although, if he’s here to beat Shitty up, why come in through the ceiling? There’s a perfectly good door, why not use that?

The guy clicks his tongue, then starts untying him. So, still possibly here to beat him up, but it’s looking less and less likely.

“Who the fuck are you?” Shitty asks.

The blond guy stands. “I’m Parse.”

Shitty frowns. He knows that name. Isn’t that the guy– 

Before he really knows what he’s doing, he throws a punch at Parse’s jaw. Parse catches it easily, looking at him with mild disapproval. “What the hell? I probably deserved that, but really?”

You know what, whatever; it was worth it.

Then Parse turns to face the door and starts yelling at the top of his voice. “The prisoner is escaping!” he shouts. 

“What the–” 

“Shut up,” Parse says, at a normal volume, then continues yelling.

“Are you trying to get us caught?” Shitty exclaims. It’s not looking good when the door flies open and one of the armed guards bursts into the room. Then Parse takes him down in under ten seconds, steals his uniform, and puts the guard’s hat on his own head at a particularly jaunty angle. 

He looks back at Shitty, one eyebrow raised. "Are you fucking coming?"

Well, shit. It’s not like he has anything better to do.

***

_Translations_

_“Maudit, Crisse, oh mon Dieu, j’suis désolé. Est ce que je t'ai blessé? Marde...”_

Damn, Jesus, oh my god, I am so sorry. Did I hurt you? Shit.

_"Y'a un tueur à gages dans ma chambre de motel."_

There's a hitman in my motel room.

_“Va chier, ‘en anglais’! J’suis québécois. J’parle français. Sais-tu quelque chose de cet assassin? Non? Eh ben, faut que tu viennes ici et t'occupes de ceci."_

Go fuck yourself, "in English"! I'm from Quebec. I speak French. Do you know anything about this assassin? No? Well, you have to come over here and deal with this.

_"Je m'en câlisse si t'es occupé! Viens ici juste putain maintenant!"_

I don't give a fuck if you're busy! Get over here right fucking now!

_"Formidable."_

Fantastic.

_"Mon Dieu, qu'est-ce que j'ai fait?"_

My God, what have I done?

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. After nine months of my life, this behemoth is finally being posted. I have a lot of thanks to give, but first and foremost to my editor/beta reader/right-hand woman [Sami](https://samisnotbritish.tumblr.com/), without whom it is doubtful this would have ever reached fruition. Kudos to this woman for not only editing, but helping me storyboard, plan, write scenes (Kabul is all her creation), and literally hold my hand through the various stages of writer's block that this fic created. 
> 
> Thanks also to the bog gremlins (you know who you are) for listening to me yell about this for much longer than you would have liked. I'm sorry. You deserved better.
> 
> Also, to [Nicole](http://womenlovewords.tumblr.com/), who came up with the base idea for this fic, and for letting me run with it. 
> 
> This is officially the longest thing I have ever written, and I'm so glad it's finally done. You have no idea. Maybe now I can get some sleep.


End file.
